High poly to low poly baking?
 

Roughly how long could it take to bake down the details of a high poly model to a low? The reason I'm asking is I'm in work, and not only shouldn't be doing this but don't fancy baking if I have to leave my computer processing alone all day.

Thanks.

Baking down from 20,000 to 5,000

thats not much at all.
from 20k to 5k.
it should not take long to bake this using the transfer surface tool in maya.
also baking depends on your map size u are baking out to, and amount of samples.
there are other 3rd party utilities for making normal maps, and surface info

soemthing like this http://www.unrealtechnology.com/scre..._creation2.jpg

to this http://www.unrealtechnology.com/scre..._creation1.jpg

that might take a while to transfer.... :eek:

:eek: wow, I guess when compared to 2,000,000 polys mine should be a walk in the park so to speak.

Now what does polygon baking mean, if you dont mind me asking? Also, in the image samples that you gave, was the 5000 poly model used in the game? If so, isn't it somewhat low detail?

Thanks.

yea 5k is low poly, but considering the amount of poly in the high rez and advances in the unreal 3 engine this was the final in game demo result
http://www.unrealtechnology.com/scre..._creation3.jpg

baking surface info from one mesh to another is when u normal map a character, or transfer UV info, or shape info etc... this vary from 3d package to 3d package.

Technically the 5000 poly model was used in the game...

http://www.unrealtechnology.com/scre..._creation3.jpg

That's what it looked like. Basically what happens is the low poly mesh gets textured with a normal map. Every pixel on the screen gets individually lit -- and if it touches a section of a normal mapped model... it doesn't take the lighting data from the flat surface. Oh no my friend, it grabs the surface normal in the normal map and sees which way its pointed.

Basically what you're doing is gently nudging the light vector off-angle to adjust its brightness... and the lighting data is taken from the high-poly mesh. If the polygon's pointed at you, but the normal map says that texel's normal is pointed down and right, it adjusts the brightness accordingly.

And yes -- all smart engine programmers take into account texel shifts... don't worry about your color map being shifted around.

Wow, I hope I don't have to use that technique for a while, because to be honest, I barely understand what you just said because of all the jargon hehe.

Its easier to do than to explain. Basically the point is the geometry in game is NOT the geometry used to light and shadow.

Apart from the edges -- people will see the high-poly model... but it doesn't need to render all those polygons.