I tend to go by the sharpness of the edge. If it's a pretty sharp edge (and generally only if the bake is rendering strange) then I'll bevel it, otherwise I just leave it soft. There aren't hard-and-fast rules about this sort of thing.
Good start. your edges are way too sharp to bake though. It won't transfer well to a low poly. Even if you weren't baking, those edges are very sharp and won't render well. image by racer445:
She's got a sharp beak and a sharp wit to match, she's Madame Talksalot! And yup, she gets her nails done in matching colors, :p [Can't help it, I like bad jokes, haha] -Sudhan
In blender you have to use "Mark Sharp" to control the smoothing group, you also have to select edges instead of faces. I had to add a Weighted Normal modifier to achieve this result, notice that keep sharp is checked on the modifier.
the sword edge. where it's sharp. Look at most of DOTA weapons are brighter where they are sharp. Regarding the runes, do whatever you want as long as it's consistent with your design idea and Dota's style. I'm just saying that they are too small.
I looked an nannou and andumy's files and their spotted off colors are a bug that will be fixed soon. It only happens if you smooth an extreme sharp angle. In the shot term just add a hard edge along your blades sharp edge.
That's a lot better, for sure. The elbow is still too low, though, and that's a REALLY sharp edge you have on the inside of the arm at the elbow. You should really round that out... sharp edges like that are not natural in organic shapes. Keep it up.
looks ace! my only crit is that sharp wave in the bottom left corner, my eye keeps getting pulled to it cos of both the sharpness and the highlight. Other than the nitpick I think you did a great job :)
I wasn't talking about it effecting the bake, but the end result. Having sharp edges that effect the silhouette WILL have an effect on the final model (not enough geometry means the edges will be sharp) I'm sure you knew exactly what I meant.
I use Konqueror as it's the default in SuSE, but also have Deer Park (FireFox 1.5) installed too, as there are a lot of things Konqueror won't do unfortunately. As far as Windows goes, again my main browser is Explorer 6 (I can't stand 7 even slightly, look and acts like FireFox).. but I have Deer Park installed as backup.…