i would uvmap the highpoly, and render out an ao map without the floaters and then render out the aos for the floaters separately, and then bake the two like the normalmap to the lowpoly
arrangemonk: No it's not, you said he should UV map the highpoly... which is really unnecessary. Vig doesn't ever suggest that. You only need to do the two bakes from highpoly to lowpoly, and then composite in Photoshop. There is no need to UV map the highpoly at all. That said, I find that process pretty fiddly and…