Blender High Poly To Low Poly Baking
How to Bake High Poly to Low Poly in Blender
Introduction
If you’re a game developer, you’re likely familiar with the term “baking”. Baking is a process of converting high polygon models into low polygon models using textures. This process is important to game developers, because it allows them to create realistic models while still maintaining a low polygon count. Blender is a popular software used by game developers to bake high poly to low poly models. In this tutorial, we’ll discuss the process of baking high poly to low poly models in Blender.
Preparing Your Mesh
The first step of the baking process is to prepare your mesh for baking. This means making sure that all of the faces are correctly oriented and that the mesh is properly unwrapped. In Blender, you can use the “Unwrap” tool to unwrap your mesh. The unwrapping process is important because it ensures that the baking process will produce accurate results.
Once you’ve unwrapped your mesh, you can check to make sure that all of the faces are correctly oriented. To do this, you can use the “Check Faces” option in Blender’s mesh tools. When you select this option, Blender will highlight any faces that are incorrectly oriented, allowing you to easily identify and fix them.
Setting Up the Bake
Once your mesh is ready, you can begin setting up the bake. To do this, select the “Bake” option in Blender’s “Render” menu. This will open up a new window with a number of options. First, make sure that the “High Poly” option is selected. This will tell Blender to bake from the high poly model to the low poly model.
Next, you’ll want to select the “Bake” tab. This will bring up a list of options for baking your model. Here, you’ll want to select the “Normal” option. This will tell Blender to bake the normal map of your model, which is important for giving your model a realistic look.
Baking the Model
Once you’ve set up the bake, you can begin baking your model. To do this, select the “Bake” button at the bottom of the baking window. This will tell Blender to begin baking your model. Depending on the size of your model, this process could take several minutes.
Once the baking process is complete, you should see a new texture appear in the bake window. This is the baked normal map of your model. You can use this texture to give your model a more realistic look.
Adding the Texture to Your Model
Once the bake is complete, you’ll need to add the baked normal map to your model. To do this, select the “Textures” tab in Blender’s “Shading” menu. This will open up a new window with a list of options for adding textures to your model. Select “Normal Map” from the list of options and select the baked normal map from the drop-down menu.
Once you’ve added the baked normal map, you should see the texture appear on your model. You can use Blender’s “Shading” menu to adjust the strength and intensity of the texture to get the desired look.
Conclusion
Baking high poly to low poly models in Blender is a relatively simple process. By following the steps outlined in this tutorial, you can easily bake your models and add realistic textures to them. With a bit of practice, you’ll be able to create high-quality models with low polygon counts in no time.
