What to do before baking?

Get the Low poly ready

⦿ Configure smoothing groups. Use hard edges with separate groups for angles of 90° or less. For angles over 90°, use soft edges within the same group. Maintain consistency with hard edges in a loop to prevent artifacts.

⦿ Eliminate gaps between geometry. Ensure there are no gaps between the geometry. In such cases, slightly push the geometry inside the other.

⦿ Use triangulation. If you don't triangulate the model before baking, it will appear differently in various software.

Prepare the High Poly

⦿ Refine geometry for better shading. If the High poly appears unattractive, adjust its geometry to transfer the details to the low-poly model accurately.

⦿ Avoid overly thin bevels, which can cause baking issues. Here are examples of good and thin bevels:

⦿ Create chamfered angles instead of 90-degree angles, as baking algorithms work better with chamfers. Geometry without chamfers doesn't bake well. Here's an example of how to chamfer geometry and enhance expressiveness:

⦿ Create the floating geometry. Place cylinders or complex shapes on top of the model instead of embedding them. As so-called floaters are not connected to the model, they can be baked onto normal maps without causing artifacts or issues with the geometry.

After these steps, ensure that High poly and Low poly models align as closely as possible. To identify areas that do not match, apply different colors to the High poly and the Low poly. Then place one model inside another. Additionally, verify if the bevels align by assigning a reflective material to the Low poly model and making it transparent.

Prepare yourself

⦿ Remove unused elements from the scene. These include extra layers, materials, textures, objects, or empty groups. Over time, they can clutter the workspace and slow down the software, making navigating and managing your project more difficult.

⦿ Create a backup. During the baking, you might need to modify geometry, such as adding bevels or supports. This can cause chaos if you do not save the original model.

How to bake?

You can bake textures in any 3D modeling software. However, the easiest way to do it is to use Marmoset. Here is a step-by-step guide:

Step #1: Configure mapping

Set the texture resolution twice as high as the final model's resolution. This technique is commonly used in production since a 2K image downscaled to 1K looks better than one created directly in 1K.

Indicate which maps to bake, such as Normal, Ambient Occlusion, and Color ID. Select the folder where the program will save the baked maps.

Step #2: Create baking groups

To prevent artifacts during baking, you can explode the model into separate elements avoiding geometric intersections. You may want to use the backup to quickly reassemble the exploded parts after. However, the better way is to utilize baking groups.

Baking group is a cluster of elements set together for baking texture maps. For example, if a model comprises multiple materials, you can create separate baking groups for each and configure them separately.

Another use of baking groups is to prevent artifacts caused by overlapping geometries. Organize your model into sets of non-intersecting parts, and use corresponding names for low poly and high poly models to simplify navigation.

Step #3: Adjust the сage

Cage is a semi-transparent mesh that wraps around the selected group's elements. It defines the space in which the details from the High poly grid project on the Low poly surface.

You can adjust the cage size, and everything inside it will be baked. Vise versa, anything outside the cage won't be baked. So, remember these points:

• Artifacts occur when the cage areas overlap even if polygons don't intersect
• Reducing and enlarging cage size may eliminate artifacts

Step #4: Bake!

Finally, click the "Bake" button to generate PSD files. In the next pipeline stage, you will work with these files in texturing software like Substance Painter.

Troubleshooting

In Marmoset

Even if you perfectly followed the guide, artifacts may still appear. This is due to the complexity of baking and the two different normal map algorithms: geometry normal and surface normal.

Each algorithm has its strengths and weaknesses. Thus geometry normal bakes bevels and seams well but may stretch circles, while surface normal preserves circle shapes but struggles with edges.

In Marmoset, you can utilize the strengths of both algorithms by using the Paint Skew function. Suppose a particular area of your model is distorted after baking. In that case, you can select the zone and use the Paint Skew function to recalculate the normal map with a different algorithm.

In Photoshop

Sometimes, you cannot fix the model's artifacts in Marmoset. In these cases, you can rebake a part of the model and repair it in Photoshop. To do this:

1. Export the problematic element in your 3D modeling software
2. Rebake that element
3. Fix the normal map in Photoshop using brushes, masks, Clone Stamp, and Healing Brush tools.

If this can’t help, you have to redo the model.

To the texturing!

You finally nailed the technical stages of the pipeline. Now, when you have the Low poly model along with UV, Normal maps, AO maps, and Color ID, it’s time to finish the work.

Doubt no more and move to the last stop of our comprehensive guide:

0. Introduction to AAA pipeline
1. Blocking-out
2. Mesh optimization
3. UV unwrapping
4. Baking (You are here)
5. Texturing

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Partially based on the material by XYZ Network

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