Baking Like Dota 2 - Need Help / Advice - ("Character Workflow included")

samikx

Hey Guys !!   I´ve been trying to make a a Dota2 /LoL/Wow  character /model, I  researched and found that to make an easier and more detailed  handpainted , what PRO´s usually do is to make a high model in Zbrush or whatever, they sculpt all the details and after that , they  make a retopo.   The magic becomes when they bake a light map and a spec map ( like a  texture from render) ; then they mix it up with the AO map  and adjust some parameters  so they  make   a  Highly detailed  AO , with almost all the information of all the details but within the diffuse map.

Well now that you know what  I´m trying to do  I will show you some of  the process  I´ve followed.


THE CONCEPT / SKETCH IDEA

After that i started modelling until i ended the  high model:


IT´s Not a good render just a 3d´s MAx scanline

After that i made a Retotopo:




The LEFT one shows all the Uvs´s , in the  RIGHT one there are  the pieaces that are in the same space , but without being overlapped. I´ve been told that projections when having overlap might have problems so this way i keep the overlap in different parts but saving UV´s space of symmetrical parts of the " plant Golem"  like (the tail, head, arms and legs) while the main part of the body is assymetrical ( the  Plant breastplate part).



The real problem comes next , and it is that i dont´t know how  people that use the same method im following  do  when baking the light and spec map.
I added a material with some spec and  a little bit of glossiness to the high poly model, in 3ds MAx after that i set up the projection modifier in the  lowpoly model with the cage ,etc and    I also made  a light dome to simulate the light from above and below ; having the down dome less intensity than the up one.

The render with the lights is something like this :

These are the textures:

Render Specular    (Complete map)                                                                         LIGHT map


Any Suggestion ? Im just a 3d art student , so Im sry if  i might have had some noob fails or maybe  I expressed myself bad in english , which isnt my native language. 
Thank you.

LaurentiuN

Check this link, texture creation for characters in dota 2.
https://support.steampowered.com/kb/8700-SJKN-4322/dota-2-character-texture-guide

samikx

Hey ty !!  This is the page  I was  already looking as reference but, the thing is  that they explain  the process once u  have the maps baked,  but not how to bake the light ,  I don´t know if i made it properly _:D

quockhanhlk

Hi, very nice process! although the light map is very helpful in setting up the base diffuse, its a bit too tedious and tricky to set up properly, and with nowaday powerful baking tools i generally ditch the light map entirely. The replacement would be a combination of the green channel of the normal map-which usually normally contains top down lighting information with other maps like AO, position (gradient map) and cavity/ curvature map.

Here're some examples you might want to check out:

https://polycount.com/discussion/comment/1945484#Comment_1945484

https://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2001714#Comment_2001714

https://polycount.com/discussion/101248/dota-2-art-guide-baking-a-gradient-mask/p1

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=316375622

samikx

@quockhanhlk Hey dude,  I wanted to  thank you  for helping me out with the lighting map workflow when making a diffuse base for handpainted textures,  Your links were really helpfull and i´ve been researching about the whole process in photoshop.

The only thing that has not been  clear to me yet  It´s how to make that the bent - normal map only has 1 channel in photoshop ( the green one  in this case)  so i copied what i got  by making a selection in the green channel, and pasting it as a new layer. 
Perhaps it´s not the correct way of doing it , but  I kind of got the lighting.

After that  I made a gradient map  made in 3d max applying a gradient ramp material to a  duplicated model and  then using a  UVWMap  modifier  to make it  a vertical gradient with a planar projection.

And finnally I baked a Cavity map to get that edges detail from the tangent normalmap , (I used CrazyBump).  

this is the texture with all the adjusted layers 

and this one is the baseTexture  (only diffuse) applied to the 3d lowpoly model.

 I´m so happy of how similar to my highpoly model it is , i really love the magic of having such a low poly model with all this information in  one only map. i found it beautifull and im really l wishing to  paint it  and give it  a nice color. Although i know i might have had some fails during the process. 
 Let me know what u guys think or any advice u wanna share.