3D Toolkit: Baking the Mesh

Baking

Having retopologised and UV unwrapped the Mesh, the next step in creating a game-ready model would be baking and texturing. These techniques would impart detail and colour into the mesh, enhancing the detail of the low-poly mesh and re-imparting the detail that was lost during the retopology phase.

Prior to beginning the retopology process, I used a Smoothing Group to enhance the topology of the low-poly mesh. Though this did increase the geometry of the mesh, it did not add an amount of detail even remotely close to the high-poly sculpt. To keep some areas of definition, I used crease sets, which pinched some areas of the mesh such as the eyes, nose and mouth. This would mean that, when smoothed, these regions would retain some tightness and would not be flattened in the universal manner of the rest of the mesh.

I smoothed the mesh to create a more even surface across it: though I was pleased with the retopology I had made, its jagged and angular nature would mean that, when the bake imparted detail upon it, the detail would be warped by the visible edges. The smoothing would then give a more even surface for the normal map to be displayed across.
With the smoothing process done, I moved on to creating the normal map itself. The normal map is the product of the bake and is the texture set that adds depth and great amounts of detail to a low-poly mesh, whilst keeping the mesh geometry the same. As such, this is used to imprint the detail of high-poly sculpts on to low-poly meshes. 

To create the normal map, I imported my model, exported as an FBX, into Substance Painter. This shows the model in the software as well as its appropriate UV map. I then moved over into Substance Painter's Baking mode, which brought up a separate menu and set of controls. This let me determine the main mesh that the normal map would be set upon, as well as the source mesh, which would be the source of the detail for the normal map.

With the source and base meshes selected, I was able to alter the envelope of the selection, showing where the normal map would be baked over the base mesh. I was also able to change the internal depth of this scan, which would determine how 'deep' the detail would be set into the model. 

With these parameters complete, I finalised the bake. This created the normal map, which I was able to export as a texture set and import into the model in Maya.

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