Max2012 Baking Diffuse maps - recommended?

LuckyNinja

Well, just as the title says, is baking a diffuse map from a higher-poly map a viable alternative to the standard means? I've effectively got a model which I'm finding incredibly hard to optimise without sacrificing detail, and if I were to use, say, pro-optimiser it makes the mesh very hard to unwrap, but I don't know if baking a diffuse map could end up going horribly wrong.

Many thanks,

Lucky

Ghostscape

Do you have a textured source mesh?

It's certainly possible, I don't know that it would actually be faster than unwrapping and painting in photoshop, though, unless you've got some killer procedurals on it.

LuckyNinja

Ghostscape wrote: »

Do you have a textured source mesh?

It's certainly possible, I don't know that it would actually be faster than unwrapping and painting in photoshop, though, unless you've got some killer procedurals on it.

I'm in the process of texturing the source mesh. It's mostly quads so unwrapping wasn't much of a hassle (new peel tool helps a lot too). I wasn't asking in regards to efficiency, but rather the result of doing it this way.

Ghostscape

I think the question really boils down to why you're using pro-optimizer on a mesh you built out of quads, what kind of model is it? Manually reducing a high poly that's quaded is really easy and you can maintain a ton of control and keep proper edge flow for animation, etc. Pro Optimizer is mostly useful for optimizing rocks and simple environment meshes (like a crumbling brick wall).

LuckyNinja

Well, it's a weapon model.I did a quick runthrough with pro-optimiser and the model looked fine enough, but using edged faces shows the topology has gone to crap. I use ProOptimiser as I have a really hard time optimising meshes. I have a hoarding personality, and I find it extremely difficult to reduce detail, so I (reluctantly) will tend to hand that over to the computer.

Ghostscape

You should stop blaming your personality for your inability to learn vital skills.

Whatever your hangups are, you can't use them as crutches, you need to overcome them.

I cannot imagine that you'd get a good low poly mesh for a gun out of pro optimizer, and given (especially if its an FPS model) you'll want to have an uneven texel distribution, you'll need to unwrap it well, which will be easier with a clean mesh.

There are definite benefits to rendering a diffuse map from the high poly, but you seem to be trying to 'cheat' your way around learning fundamental skills, which is not a benefit it will give you.

LuckyNinja

I said I find it extremely difficult, but I don't not try. I'm currently experimenting with workflow trying to find more efficient methods for me that ease the pressure on aspects which I find hard while still allowing me room to improve. I currently use pro-optimiser and then refine the result, but I find that to be a very time-consuming process. It is not my intention to cheat around fundamental skills, and I hope you can appreciate me not wanting to throw myself off the deep-end.

Lennyagony

So to summarise you have a high resolution mesh, textured with unwrapped UV's.

You want to then optimise a version of your high poly mesh and bake down your maps without having to re make your UV's?

Sure you can do this, however your will want to have a good look over your optimised meshes UV's, as chances are they will need adjusting or sections re created.

Ghostscape makes a good point about optimising with pro-optimizer, final result will suffer.

Best advice i can give is to just try it, what's the worst that can happen? even if it goes sideways your going to learn a bunch of things anyway.

Ace-Angel

Unless you have a rock, which will be essentially rubble, and not a hero a hero rock, I either suggest retoplogy or manual optimization. ProOptimzer doesn't keep model loops, surfaces and structures as one might wish, clean.

passerby

what is the mesh, depending on what it is you shoould choose between doing a re-topo or just optmize by hand and using the original for baking normals information down.