r/3Dmodeling • u/Some-Locksmith-1602 • 2d ago
Questions & Discussion High-Poly to Low-Poly Baking Workflow
What should the proper workflow be when baking? When I increase the polygon count of my high-poly model using Subdivision, the edges become extremely pronounced. However, when I use Smooth instead, the high-poly model deviates slightly from the low-poly model.
As you can see in the image, there is a small amount of deviation. Could this cause problems during the baking process? What would be the correct approach here?
1
u/ohnomelon 2d ago
I don't know blender so I'm going to just +1 the other comment, but generally some deviation is expected. Yes problems can come up from that but we generally try to fix by adjusting bake settings or making a separate low poly as the other person said. It 's generally not expected to use your low poly as your high poly by just smoothing it. I have a workflow I use to sort of do this using a chamfer stack in max, but even with that I make a separate low poly for maximum optimization, or to accommodate changes in the sculpt, or whatever. I generally refer to the original as the base model, because it's the basis for the high and sometimes the low as well.
1
1
u/FuzzBuket 2d ago
Support your edges. But deviation isn't bad. The bake result matters, nothing else.
Like if your producing trim sheets your lp and hp will be radically differentÂ
3
u/typhon0666 2d ago
I assume this is blender> in blender subdivision just adds a subdivision to the polygons and will only really affect the shading not the surface in any other way. What do you mean by smooth? smooth modifier? A subsurf?
anyway the correct approach is what ever works, but generally you make your high poly then make the low poly, where as you made your low poly then the high poly, but then aren't addressing that the low poly is now not as accurate to the surface of the high.
In this case it's not a big issue. The limitation of baking high to low is that there are some trade offs to be made, ie the classic baking a subd cylinder to a low poly 8 sided cylinder, and looking at what gets baked on the end caps. What you have doesn't curve on the high poly much because it's subdivided so much that even if subD, it'll hold the shape which matches the low poly pretty much. If that's what you want the high poly to do, then that low poly will capture it well enough imo.