What is the order from start to finish on an asset

Eggy995

I am stuck at the point where i have finished a low poly and a high poly version of a model yet i dont know where to go from here. My knowledge is limited and even though researching on youtube has its perks i still dont know where to go or what to do. I assumed Baking would be the way to go so i went into maya and here i am still waiting for it to finish the process. I had given substance painter a shot with the baking process but the model turned out.... well, it was nice to look at, lets just say that. So i must be missing something, so i looked at UV mapping and perhaps that what i need to go to next. I really dont know so can someone give guidance and resources for me to look at and learn from please. It will be much appreciated
Cheers

Animas

Baking is the way to go. Post some pictures, low poly, high poly (maybe include wireframes for both), your unwrap.
Describe what you did in maya baking vise, post some pictures too. Same for painter.

Currently your post is an inbetween between help I have no idea what I am doing and i got this error, help. And I have no idea which one suits you more.
I imagine a similar thought or two went throu other peoples head when looking at your post.

So all in all, provide alot more info for people to help you.

poopipe

You can't bake  or texture without UVs

Make UVs 

Eggy995

@Animas The model is completed, what is next?

Eggy995

I got this what do i do now, took me bloody 6 hrs to get here with maya freezing and crashing. Have done this right??

musashidan

You unwrapped the high poly instead of the low poly.

You don't have to unwrap the high. That's only used to capture the surface/details at the baking stage.

RoseC

In addition to doing the unwrap on the low poly, it's also a good idea to try to make them fit as much as possible, like Tetris, ensuring more useable texture space. Also I could be wrong but Maya goes beyond the bounds of the accepted UV space so make sure it's in the first upper right quadrant, 0 to 1

Eggy995

Yeah i So i learnt that i UVed the high poly instead of the low poly, so i fixed that but now this happens. Its an improvement from what i was originally getting but I know its not suppose to look like this

RoseC

I'm seeing on your low poly model, the normal of the blade tip from your UV picture. The only portion that was in the 0 to 1 space. Basically, shrink the UV islands all down into the space from 0 to 1

Eggy995

Like this???

RoseC

yeah!!! also i'd reaalllly cram that shit right up to the edge, it's good practice. this should work

Eggy995

So i crammed it in best i could, probably could be better but i dont know what better or good. The baking is like it wants to work but does?

RoseC

Can you show your bake setup

Eggy995

RoseC

I forget the right ways to do that in substance painter, can't help much. I'd say maybe play with the distance or try a cage.

Eggy995

when i move the search envelope slider nothing happens either

Eggy995

here are both the high and low models as well maybe ive done something wrong here

Eggy995

i think i may have found my issues will get back to you if i have fixed it

Eggy995

Okay soo there were some ngons, cleaned them up. Though it still not covering the whole model with the nice pretty high poly  

Eggy995

It looks like the low poly model is bigger than high poly model. 

Steamy_Steve

I believe I've noticed something: when you subdivided your low-poly into your high-poly, you didnt put any support loops, thus all the acute angles got drastically smoothed out.
This yielded a number of volume discrepancies between the two versions (your latest screenshot shows exactly this), causing those artefacts. Those are caused by the low-poly surfaces being too far from the high-poly ones.

Alas, given the differences in shapes, no cage could fix the issue.
If you want your final model to look exactly like the low-poly, your best bet is to duplicate your low-poly, then hit "3" (was it three?) for the subdiv preview and start adding edge loops as close as possible to all the sharp angles that you want to keep in place when turning it into the high-poly.
Just switch between normal and subdiv modes until all the angles are fixed.

Or, if your target shape actually is the high-poly, I'd suggest to cut off every low-poly's "pointy peak" that pokes out of the high-poly's surfaces.
NO need to follow every little curve of it, but avoid drastic differences the most you can.

Eggy995

I have support loops already

jakemoyo

Part of your problem also might be that it looks like your low poly is still flat shaded. I can't recall how to go about it in maya but you should set only your uv shell edges to hard and set everything else to soft shaded. That might help a bit.

Yerus

It looks like to me that it's a problem with the 'search envelop'. Try to get it lower than that. Search envelop scans your mesh from a certain distance, the more distance you put, the less details it will avail and the result is that the closest bits of your mesh will receive the detail, those bits further away won't.

Eggy995

@Yerus The search envelope doesnt move in Maya in where i set it up for some reason, so ive been baking in Substance painter.
I Will give it a go @jakemoyo otherwise ill just finish it as a concept piece instead of a game ready piece

pior

"I am stuck at the point where i have finished a low poly and a high poly version of a model yet i dont know where to go from here."

Don't research/dive into a workflow that you don't know using something that you spent hours or days on - you are bound to get frustrated and end up exactly where you are right now - basically giving up.

Now of course what is done is done, and this sword is probably a good test asset now that you are at this stage. But consider this like a lesson to remember for the future.

Sage

I would go over your low poly and compare it to the high poly. Where the silhouettes don't match well add more geometry to the low and make it match better. Keep in mind that when you smooth a model it "melts" a little so you have to go and match the low poly to the high.