How do you bake such a complex woven hat on a low-poly mesh that like that?

Lifelover

I'd like to learn how to bake intricate models on low-poly meshes and this example by Angela Rico fits exactly what I aim for. How do you bake such a model with all the spaces, holes etc on a low-poly that doesn't have any?

As far as my limited knowledge goes it must involve a transparency map but I'd really want to learn nuts and bolts of this so detailed responses will be highly appreciated. :)

Kanni3d

You find compromises. Couple of solutions off the top of my head in no particular one better than the other:

• Simply bake with opacity to simulate the holes and save a ton of geometry (and makes baking much easier. Geometry is cheap, but it'll be a pain in the ass to make sure your cage properly bakes those tight crevices properly).
• Try to seal/pinch the holes together in the highpoly so its nearly a contiguous mesh, avoid large holes like around the large perimeter, this would make it all more friendly to bake down. This obviously compromises on the artistic visuals.
• Add some more geo for the areas with larger holes and bake it down. Time consuming, expensive on geo, and may not yield easy bakes, requiring some further finessing. But would look the best, as it'd have the most fidelity.
• Add some geometry in between the holes, so that you can properly ID the holes and use some creative texturing to "fake" them with AO/dark materials. Least fidelity, but easiest route.

Lifelover

https://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2774716#Comment_2774716

Thank you so much for the detailed response, @Kanni3d. Can you expand on the first and last point:

1. How do I bake with opacity? Can you point me to a tutorial?
2. What approaches do you have in mind to take the fake those holes with AO/materials? I'd highly appreciate it if you know some guide to check out on that, as well. :)

gnoop

I suggest to make some geometry rounding in outer and inner edge to fake some thickness. And adding that random straw sticking out just by a few triangles scattered around with alpha. Would save some uv space since you could put them in a page corners. As alpha material it would be separate texture set anyway. Opacity is just alpha. You can simply render it as an ortho view and not bother yourself with any baker at all .( i mean the hat)

Fabi_G

"How do I bake with opacity?"

Inside your baker (which one do you use?), look for opacity or alpha and add it to maps to be baked.

I recommend just doing some small scale experiments to get the feet wet.

Lifelover

Will give it a shot, thanks guys!