When creating your texture map for your normals bake, if you check the 32bit float box it will bake a 16bit normal map. It will be a more accurate representation of your high poly and have no artifacts. Very important if you are baking normal maps for objects that have very low roughness.

Sad that the Starfield devs didn't see this video before release.

Render with a single sample, it makes no difference to use more but makes the bake instant

I think you can also go backwards with this process, meaning you can make a low poly model, then add a multires modifier, use sculpting tools to add details and then bake the normal map to keep the model low poly.

This is very helpful this will work great on a full landscape from millions of polys down to a minimal amount thanks for sharing!

Excellent! I feel much more confident after seeing how simple you made this process.

I like this Video, particularly good explanation shows all the complete workflow without confusing things added on!

This is amazing! I've been trying to find a more streamlined process to go from high poly to a model that can actually be used in maya to create large scenes and this is beyond helpful. Thanks!!

Thank you! The decimate modifier is so good! I made a bunch of rocks to use as a landscape decoration in my game, but they were around 10k triangles, now it's 500 triangles and they still look good🙂

Finally someone who goes straight to the point! Amazing explanation about Blender bake on youtube, surely the best one. I don't like the way you unwrapp (because for sure you can do it better) but anyway nice choise, you made it simple things pretty hard to understand. Thank you.

Loved this tutorial very much! Thanks!

Very clear and efficient process! Thank you!

This tutorial helped me out a lot! Thank you!

I worked for 1.5 days to figure this out by using the cage method. I tried everything to get my realistic head sculpt to have detail, but this tutorial worked. For some reason the cage methods kept letting me down but this alternate way did not. Amazing work please keep it up!

Thanks 🤣🙏 I tried every tutorial and it was always doing smth weird or they were not explaining well or too fast but you explained this thing so easily and clearly

Thank you very much, this was a great lesson!

Such an important tip! Thanks for sharing you're amazing

It was a really good lesson... I always render scenes with lot of polygons.... Thanks brow.

Thank you man! that was so difficult to understand before watching your tutorials , still in progress but I'm closer than ever! keep up the amazing work !

Thank you for explaining it so well, so happy I found this tutorial!

Excellent video, couldn't be more clear, thank you!

Thank you so much for the multires method.Something new I learnt today

Really fantastic walkthrough. Thanks!

this tut would have helped me so much back in february when i started doing things with normals hahaha, all tutorials were a bit convoluted, and i couldn't understand them very well, but i eventually figured things out

You say BAKE with so much energy. Loved it, even tho I'm not into blender or 3d rendering.

Thanks! Very helpful. Good luck on your KZfaq journey! It is quite the endeavor.

Super useful tutorial, thank you !

Wow, That was helpful Thank you so much✨

There's an addon called "JBake" that essentially automates that whole process. If you plan on baking a lot of normals, it's a worthwhile addon to have.

Great lesson. Thank you.

Superrrr video..very helpful .. was searching exactly this.. thanks a ton !!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥

Good explanation THANKS

You resolved my issue with a fast video because other youtuber show plugin or other method, but this two method was fast and precise, so thanks. Ho, and now you are one French follower.

man i was stuck on this topic for so long, just now because of you i understand it, thanks

Finally a tutorial that helped me bake the normals of my object thanks so much

Just amazing, thank you so much !

Thank you, for the nice video! It helped me a lot.

Finally I understand about baking! Thank you so much!!!😭

I've been learning blender for about 6 months. It's amazing in many ways compared to fusion 360. Guys like you make every little tip so easy to understand. Thank you.

Nemanja, I never knew you had a Blender channel, this is Exciting! I've always followed your Outstanding tutorials on Photoshop!

I live what you did here. Rly helpful

Very useful, thank you 👌🏻

Great video! Thank you 🫶🏻

thanks for the time it took u to share, so usefull

Just see this video in my youtube suggestions. Watched it and subscribe immediately. You making good explanation of things! Keep going!

Super useful, thanks

thank you! super helpful!

That was extremely helpful! Based on mostly this tutorial, I've tried to make a step by step workflow for this. Thought I'd pass it along in case it is helpful to anyone. If anything is wrong, please reply to the comment with the correction. Recipe for Baking detail from High Poly to Low Poly Mesh: (HTab = Horizontal Tabs across top left of Blender) (VTab = Vertical Tabs in bottom right panel of HTab-Layout in Blender) 1.HTab_layout - Copy High Poly and rename like … Mesh_High and Mesh_Low a.Shift-D to duplicate, Right click to cancel motion (so they exist in the same space) 2.Turn on Statistics overlay (top right icon, Hollow Sphere hanging from Solid Sphere) 3.Make the Low Poly model, well…. Low Poly… (reduce geometry) a.Option 1: VTab_Modifier(wrench) - Use Decimate Modifier i.Lower Ratio to See affect ii.Remove without applying (since we are using Remesh instead) b.Option 2: VTab_Data(three connected dots) - i.Still in Object Mode, change to Wireframe to see the faces that make-up the Mesh ii.Remesh_Section (Note: There is also a Remesh Modifier that does the same thing) 1.Set Voxel Size to get less faces 2.Press Voxel Remesh button … note Face difference iii.Normals_Section- check that Auto Smooth is off on High and Low Poly c.I ended up using a combination of Decimate, both UnSubdivide, and Collapse, as well as ReMesh 4.HTab_UV-Editing - Smart unwrap the Low Poly a.A Key(select all)… U Key->Choose Smart Unwrap (S Key) b.Set margin to .02m (then press OK) c.At this point, you could save your UV Map for use later… Left Viewport, Viewport Menu Ribbon -> UV ->Export UV Layout (pick a location in your project, and save) 5.HTab_Layout - Split Screen (or you could just do this in HTab_Shading) a.Switch left viewport to Node editor 6.Shade Smooth on High and Low poly meshes (right click in Viewport) 7.Make sure that both High and Low Poly models are in the same position in space (right on top of each other, intersecting vertices) 8.Two options, MultiRes or Not-MultiRes a.If MultiRes…. i.Hide the High Poly Mesh (eyeball icon in the Object Heirarchy) ii.VTab_Modifier - Add MultiResolution Modifier 1.In the modifier details, Subdivision_Section, Press “Subdivide” button until Low Poly Mesh look like the High Poly Mesh 2.Change “Level Viewport value to 0 9.VTab_Modifier - Add Shrink-wrap Modifier to Low Poly … target the High and Apply 10.Create New Material on Low Poly mesh 11.Create image texture node and normal map node in Node editor and wire to BSDF 12.On Image Node, create New “map image” on image texture (set width and height) sRGB -> Non-Color (unless Diffuse) 13.VTab_Render - a.Change to Cycles Engine and switch to GPU if you have one b.Sampling Section - Change “Max Samples” to 128 c.Bake Section i.Switch Bake Type to Normal (Diffuse, etc depending on what kind of image map you want to Bake) 1.Note, if Baking Diffuse, if you only want color, turn off Direct and Indirect (unless you also want to capture the lighting) ii.If NOT MultiRes, click Checkbox for “Selected to Active” 1.Three options for specifying the baking area/constraint (Oven)… 1. Cage, 2, Extrusion, 3. Max Ray Distance (tutorial uses #2) a.If Cage (Surrounds bake source and target to constrain render area for logic of the bake to operate) i.Duplicate Low Poly for use as Cage… make bigger than both other meshes (rename this copy to Mesh_Cage) ii.Checkbox - Cage option iii.Use Eyedropper to choose duplicated low poly mesh that you are using as the cage b.If Extrusion just set value to something like .5 m c.If Max Ray Distance just set value d.Note: Normal map that is generated should only be on the purple/pink spectrum, otherwise, adjust Extrusion amount, Max Ray Distance, or Cage size and rebake 2.Unhide Both Meshes if hidden 3.Make sure that the Image Node that is the baking target is selected in the Low Poly Material 4.In Object Hierarchy, Select High Poly, then CNTL-Select Low Poly iii.If MultiRes, click Checkbox for “Bake from Multires” iv.Double check settings … click Bake 14.Shading Tab - Image Panel, preview Normal image 15.Hide High Poly to see Baked Low Poly 16.Play with HDRI and BSDF shader (see tutorial) to compare meshes 17.If you used MultiRes modifier, now that you are satisfied with the bake, go ahead and apply this modifier 18.Save the baked image to disk. HTab_Shading - Lower Left Image Preview Panel - hamburger Menu -> Image -> Save As… a.In the Node Editor - Image Node - Click on the Folder icon and point it to your saved image 19.Repeat baking steps (from 10 above) for each image type that you want to bake from High to Low, usually at least Normal, Diffuse(for Base Color)

I'm working on a tree for project of mine and I got it from 8 million faces down to 996!!! Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

amazing!! thank you!!

I couldn't get the first technique to work on Blender 3.6 but the multires modifier worked OK. Thanks.

Thank you for this

Thank's brother , it helped me .

great video. thank´s

Thanks, man!

Thanks so much 🙏🙏🙏

earned a sub!

Best guy for this. Ty

Using a decimal separator in the thumbnail makes it seem like your turning a really low poly model into a higher poly one!

Tyvm

Nice!

0:00 left high poly and right low poly. You can see it in the silhouette. The left one has way more structure/smooth the right one has harder egges.

One way to make this video extra useful (specially to newbies) is to explain a little more what you are doing and why, and not just explain how to do it.

i needed this so badd

for some of you who will bake diffuse color from high poly mesh to simple 2d plane for texture atlas - dont forget in ouliner to turn off all render icons of the rest unbackable objects, because it may collide with your baked map )))

Thanks this video is so helpful to all 3d artists

Very helpful Nemanja as usual

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Texture baking is very important to learn.

ThX

Thank you, I'm glad you showed both methods. Excellent !! A very helpful video for a difficult concept.

thanks

Simple bake is a must have for Blender. It would help save time

Thanks for the tutorial! This is great. One question. You mentioned it was very important to switch to Cycles from Eevee. Does this not work in Eevee too, but of course lower quality?

so smart 👍

Nice

thank you i finally baked a normal map

i loved that HDRI lol ! do you know which one you used?

This is the first tutorial which I understand with first try xD thanks! as my model has 20 million polygons, I still wait for the result^^ Hope it worked Can I display the baked texture in texture painting or vertex paint, so I could for example paint dino scales scale for scale in different colours? I have another question: in sculpting my model mirror is not 100% the same... Normaly I model the clay on the right side with X mirror... But the left side (the mirrord side) isnt exat the same.. its like you modeling the right side with 100% strengh and the left side just with 90% strengh. Do you know why this happens? its with every model i made

he never deleted the high version and always covered the low one, gg genious.

Great video! Question, which Mac are you running for your work? OR just straight up how much memory do you have?

you can tell which is which. Look at the edges (transition to background) the low poly version has uglier more clunky edges. This is important, that is how you know how far you can go with this. You example is still high poly enough that it does not become apparent enough to be a problem.

suppose i want to paint the rock do i paint the high poly and just transfer the color using normal maps or do i have to add another color image for the low poly and uv unwrap both high and low poly mesh

Thanks

Nice. 🙂

Does this work for character models as well, or would another method be needed?

i cant believe this channel only have 3k subs, i thought some 600k

I think you can optimize it more by manually doing retopo. 1.2k tris is still a lot as a rock. But important thing is you demonstrated the worflow. Subbed!

Seems like Multires bake way is faster and easier. Thanks for nice and straightforward video.

Thanks for the helpful video. So if i understand it right , the low poly mesh just uses a image texture ( so it doesnt really have the real textures) but looks the same and doesnt use as much faces / triangles as the high poly one .

Does this work well with characters, or do you need to strategically retopologize and seam for unwrap.

Is there a possibilty to automate this process of several manual steps or is there maybe a tool / addon doing this job?

The Garten of banban devs played this video in reverse lol

Normal maps are witchcraft. Super helpful video though. Saving this one for reference.

We need to send this to that guy who made 70k polygon sandwitch in starfield.

Can I make a normal map from a collection instead of one object ? I've made a 3D model for a game and I want to bake a normal map to gave it a smoother look. But I couldn't build my object as one mesh. Instead, it's 7 meshes clipping together to form one object.

I honestly think that decimate looks better than voxel remesh in this case

i love you

I could also just use quad remesher from exosuit?

It could be way less than 600 and still looks really good.