to bake or not to bake...

Support Basics & Interface
1

hey all, ive been working on rendering an architectural model - and now its at the point where its around 500,000 verts/plys - so i think i should bake some raytraced shadows, or AO, or GI or something…

…but ive been getting mixed feedback - some say yay some say nay…thing is that i want to animate it with nice shadows and illumination and i still need to fill it up with vegetation (trees bushes)

…so how can i reduce the size on this model? should i more effectively do grass? if so then how? (the grass is particles now)

…im kinda at a loss so im gonna post the .blend and maybe a kind soul can point in the right direction so i can animate it nice and in less than 900 hours you know?

here’s the blend (sorry i couldnt pack the textures - but they put it at like 17megs and im on dialup):
http://www.filefactory.com/get/f.php?f=4090ee49245823ea54f8d5f7

here’s my last post to show where im at (im need help with the quasi-photorealistic renders)…yeah its my first big scene - i only have about a month of blender under my belt…

https://blenderartists.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=59183&start=30

and of course if you have more c&c lay it on me…i really really wanna learn more of this stuff and theres a ton of good advice lying here at elysiun

2

Well, if you plan on animating the project with a high poly count, then baking is probaly the best choice. I have not had this problem (yet), but I believe that Baking will cut down on the ray tracing time.

Have you tried a small low poly project and baked it? As a test, to see if there is any benefit for baking?

3

cool, cuz i had gotten advice in the past that baking a super high poly object would take daayyyyzzze and i shouldnt do it…

…so which of the few baking options do you recommend for a lotta poly’s?

…i used tex2bake on my skydome once, that was about it.

[edit: thats why i posted the blend, i figured someone who ‘knows’ could look at and be like: “yeah go ahead and bake and while your at it use these settings on this plugin”, or “no, u can’t bake this what are u crazy”…]

4

man, im sorry to bump my own post like this - but if i gotta beg then i’ll beg…when it comes to blender i have no shame :stuck_out_tongue:

can someone pleez just point in the right direction as to which baking scirpt/option/package i should use for a megahighpoly scene like this one?

aaand, maybe give me some advice on improving the grass situation i currently have going on??

5

ok…last bump…i swear!

is my post inappropriate or something? i just done wanna spend a million hours baking my lit model just to find out i did something stupid or picked the wrong baking script/plugin…

  • if no one reply’s this time, ill just start blind and post my results…idunno maybe no has tried baking a super high vert scen (though i doubt it)

(btw thx spin - and nice work on visualizing that piping for your work!)