Hi, some day ago i saw a video by Alex Telford, where it model a weapon. I saw that it use bevel and some times loop cut for generating hard edges… so my question is: What is the difference by adding loop cut, beveling the edge or use edge crease? and when i finished to modeling with subsurf, how i can switch to a low poly version without losing the shape. The second problem born because i’ve a good hi poly model… I’ve tried to create a low poly version and bake the normal map. But the bake result is awful and the normal map work as it does.
bevel works on the base mesh to round edges. making a loop cut next to the edge you want to soften only works for subsurfaced models. edge crease does the same thing as making a virtual loop cut very close to an edge, but since it is a modifier, it can be deleted or the values changed easily. as for your normals map, it’s hard to say without seeing the model, but I suspect you are dealing with either angles that or too harsh, or a mesh with intersecting pieces.
This are some screens of my model… it will be used in game… at the moment i’ve tried to duplicate the mesh appply modifier and reducing the poly by removing uneccesary loopcut… but as i said the normal map applied to the low poly doesn’t fake the hipoly version
