I don’t know how relevant this is, but I came to such a decision. Maybe someone else will come in handy. The bottom line is to raise your floater higher so that it does not cast shadows when baking, on the lower object
Looks crisp mr. Bolton, good workflow you've got there! My only concern, really, are those rivet floaters on the upper receiver's curved bit - you reckon those will actually bake fine?
Thanks Jamie! I try to mix it up a little! Some are floaters, most are nDo, but to be honest I think more often than not, nDo gives me a much more clean and polished result.
I tried hitting the button and it, does, absolutely nothing, The Floater panel "unightlights" as Max thinks about something and then it highlights again. And outputting to different folders produces the sane non-result. Scott Scott
In a realistic case, you would just model a low profile floater that bakes the same info into the normal map. You wouldn't use the whole nut and bolt model shown here ... it's way overkill.
The part on the front should be left entirely to the normal map. These kind of details are perfect for projecting onto flat surfaces. As for the AO shadow on the right, thats exactly what it will look like with a floater. See here
Just a tip- no need to explode your meshes with handplane baker. You can also control how AO interacts between objects with "isolate ao" and "is floater". Isolating the AO treats the AO bake for that groups as it's own separate render. That is useful for animated objects where you don't want them leaving shadows in place…
Alright, hope to get around to doing lowpoly/texture for this at some point. Modo render gives me boners. Just simple radiosity + blurred reflection. I might take some of the floaters and dig them out into the geo(the rectangle bits on the barrel for instance).
the muzzleflashes rock Problem with your run animation is that the pelvic origin is only going up and down rather than along with the rest of the body making it look like a zero-g floater or someone stuck on a swing.