Ok so I’ve been searching all over to an answer to my question. But still haven’t found a solution.
The problem is this, I’ve made a high res model: http://i.imgur.com/5CQkNVc.png
Then did retopo with snapping on the high res model: http://i.imgur.com/ntTAZgK.jpg
And now when I bake the high res to the low res with ‘selected to active’ I get this: http://i.imgur.com/5NLcWck.jpg
Now as far as I can tell from looking around is that it’s a problem with 2 meshes (in the high res model) intersecting, since his hair is a separate piece (though same model) But I’m also getting the problem in the lines in his hair which is a single mesh and doesn’t have any intersecting points as far as I can tell.
Basically I’m wondering what would be the easiest way to get a proper bake out of this high res model.
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance!
I am not sure, if this will help. but have you tried xNormals. Cause it gives very good results for AO & Normal maps. second, smooth shade your low poly too.
In blender, try to lower the margin to 2 and try the bake.
xNormals is a free program. It is one of the best program when it comes to generating different maps.
I think some experienced members can help you out better. I suggest uploading your blend file with hi-res & lo-res model.
ok so I got xNormals, and it worked better in some areas but had bad artifacts in other areas. I considered taking the best of both and mergin them in photoshop, but the overall brightness contrast was too different to do easily.
So I ended up splitting the high res meshes into separate models on the same layer and baked a AO map for each one in blender, then went into photoshop and selected all the 100% black areas, deleted and layered them together. That greatly reduced the problem and I just painted away some of the harsher areas (reloading the texture into blender with GLSL texture on to see near real time updates) Until I got what I wanted.
Some spots are probably still too dark (like the eyes, between the legs and fingers etc.) But I’ll work those areas out better when I do the actual texturing.
If anyone knows of a better way I’d still love to hear it for future projects. As this was pretty time consuming. Thanks for the help. Cheers!
I’ve split your model in 3 pieces. Hairs, Head & eyes & Body. selcted them all , then low poly.
In Baking AO Tab. Selected NOrmalize, Margin 4 , bias & distance .2 , it baked in one go. same result as yours.
By the way, AO is used in conjunction with Textures. If you add up textures in photoshop and us AO layer as multiply, it gives a lot of depth to you textures.
Yeah I dunno what was up with my baking anyway I got a usable map and yeah that was the plan. I just finished the texture with the AO map applied and here’s the finished version: http://skfb.ly/mkj3hge1a Thanks for the help!
anyway I got a usable map and yeah that was the plan. I just finished the texture with the AO map applied and here’s the finished version: 
