[Blender/Substance Designer] Some advice regarding high/low poly baking needed.

oraeles77

I posted a question a few days ago regarding different techniques of making a wall etc.

https://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2641153

so I made a highpoly wall model and baked it, and Im still confused for several reasons.

firstly, I noticed the normal pattern in Blender and SD are completely opposite... which one is correct?  secondly, if in SD I just made a brick pattern normal, that pattern isn't faded/smooth but flat. is that better? 

The low poly mesh was originally 6 sides however I added a bevel as the edges looked terrible/warped. I was told a few days ago that all 90 degree angles should be seperate uv islands, however with a bevel everything is 30 degree angles, so... should that affect anything or change anything. it has a 90 degree split edge modifier already added.

also regarding the bevels, these produce a triangle in each corner, is there a particular technique you use for UV mapping them in the 'correct' way?

I unwrap everything in Blender using the conformal option, not angle based, does this affect anything regarding baking or how the edges look?

musashidan

SD uses direcX by default. Blender uses OpenGL Not a huge deal. You can either switch SD to OGL to bake, or simply flip the green(Y) channel.

Blender/SD are both using Mikk tangent basis so you can bake fully averaged(synced) UV/smoothing splits are not necessary. The 90 degree issue doesn't make a difference as you're baking averaged.

There is no special rules for mapping chamfers. Pick one edge or the other as your seam. Whichever makes more sense for packing/texturing.

It doesn't matter what way the mesh is unwrapped. As long as you account for seam count/distortion/packing/straightened borders. Less seams the better. Tradeoff between seams and distortion. Less distortion is obviously good. Nice straightened uv island seams to eliminate aliasing and aid in a more efficient pack.

Note: all of the above are things that you eventually learn to understand from experience. The more assets you run through the process the easier it all becomes.

oraeles77

musashidan said:

SD uses direcX by default. Blender uses OpenGL Not a huge deal. You can either switch SD to OGL to bake, or simply flip the green(Y) channel.

Blender/SD are both using Mikk tangent basis so you can bake fully averaged(synced) UV/smoothing splits are not necessary. The 90 degree issue doesn't make a difference as you're baking averaged.

There is no special rules for mapping chamfers. Pick one edge or the other as your seam. Whichever makes more sense for packing/texturing.

It doesn't matter what way the mesh is unwrapped. As long as you account for seam count/distortion/packing/straightened borders. Less seams the better. Tradeoff between seams and distortion. Less distortion is obviously good. Nice straightened uv island seams to eliminate aliasing and aid in a more efficient pack.

Note: all of the above are things that you eventually learn to understand from experience. The more assets you run through the process the easier it all becomes.

thank you.