Grouping :
Before starting the baking process I needed to group the environment into sections. This does a couple things; it keeps the scene organized, allows for easy identification of which assets/geometry belongs to each group, and aides in making the baking process smoother when UV’ing the maps for the groups. Check out the images below to see what I mean by grouping meshes together!
As you can see in the image above, I tried my best to make sure each group contained relatively the same amount of geometry.
All the geometry with the same color indicate 1 combined mesh group. Sometimes you may find yourself with too much in one given UV space. In that case you may need to make additional groupings as needed.
baking:
Now for the baking. Sometimes baking can take two minutes or twenty. It depends on a few things. How many samples your scene is trying to process, and the graphics card your computer has. The better the graphics card, the less amount of time it takes to bake materials.
In this example, you can see the grouped meshes in their UV space. With the help of the Simple-Bake add-on it autogenerated the UV map while keeping the initial UV unwrapping, and distributed the UV space evenly. The image on the right is the baked out map of all the UV’s for that group.
With the Simple-Bake add-on I can bake all the grouped meshes with one click, rather than individually baking out each grouped mesh. It makes for an easier work flow.
What’s next:
What’s next? Well, to finish out the week I look to start working on a new task related to Monochrome game. I’ll have a more flushed out plan as the tasks are assigned!
Media of the week:
Came across this playlist this past week. I found it to be soothing as I was working on my tasks and just have playing in the background. The artwork and simple animation is really satisfying to watch and powerful in it’s subtleness.