# Bake ## Baking in 3ds Max {% hint style="info" %} Before baking, you need UV information for the completed low-polygons. Please proceed after creating the UV map. {% endhint %} {% hint style="info" %} ### **Please check the smoothing groups before rendering** Please organize the smoothing groups. If a face with an angle of more than 45 degrees is composed of a single smoothing group, the baked normal map will appear as if it is directly affected on the surface. {% endhint %} For the inner mesh, different smoothing groups should be specified. Detach the UV of the separated mesh.

1. **Place the created high-poly and low-poly on top of each other.** The low-poly should adequately cover the high-poly to appear similar in volume. It's also smooth to handle the Cage in Projection.

Select **\[Projection]** in the Modifier List.

In the Pick List, select the **\[HIGH]** as the baking target.

Activate Shaded and adjust the Amount value to completely wrap the high-poly. {% hint style="danger" %} If the distance between the high-poly and Cage is too far, the quality of the baked normal map decreases. {% endhint %}

Press shortcut 0 and execute \[Render to Texture].

2. **Set the options as follows:** Activate \[Projection Mapping] - \[Confirm Setup] - \[Render Filter] - Check \[Global Super Sampling] Option \[ADD] - Normal map 1024x1024 Size - Rendering {% hint style="info" %} Set the baking size high and then reduce it as needed {% endhint %}

Here is the completed normal map after rendering. The red area below is caused by the lack of high-polygon information. You need to clean up the basic normal map base color.

3. **Complete to clean**

## Baking in Blender {% hint style="info" %} Before baking, UV information for the completed low-polygon is required. Please create a UV map. {% endhint %} ### Setting the Scene for Bake 1. Go to \[Edit] - \[Preferences]- \[System] tab and set \[Cycles Render Device]. {% hint style="info" %} If the CPU performance is similar to or better than the graphics card, enable it; otherwise, disable it\ \ For GTX graphics card: Choose CUDA / For RTX graphics card: Choose OptiX. {% endhint %}

2. Switch the Render Engine to **\[Cycles]** in the Render tab.

{% hint style="info" %} Depending on the PC environment, changing the Device option to GPU Compute can improve the baking speed. {% endhint %} 3. Set up the \[Render] - \[Bake] settings as follows:

### Bake Normal map 1. Select the low-polygon and deactivate Auto Smooth under Data - Normals.

2. Press the Tab key to switch to Edit Mode, select the outer and inner faces, then right-click - Shade Smooth.

Left: Select the outer face / Right: Select the inner face

3. Align the low-polygon and high-polygon so that they completely overlap. {% hint style="warning" %} Check if both the low-polygon and high-polygon are visible. {% endhint %}

4. Click the \[Shading] button at the top to switch to the Shading Editor.

5. Select the low-polygon and, if there is no applied material, click the \[New] button to add a new material.

6. Set up the material nodes as shown in the image below.

7. Click the **\[New]** button of the Image Texture to create a new texture.

8. If there is an applied material for the high-polygon, click the X button to remove it.

9. With the high-polygon selected, hold down the Shift key and select the low-polygon. {% hint style="info" %} If selecting from the Outliner instead of the Viewport, hold down the Ctrl key while selecting the low-polygon after selecting the high-polygon. {% endhint %}

{% hint style="danger" %} Please check the color of the model name shown in the outliner. The low-polygon should be yellow (active). {% endhint %} 10. Press the **\[Bake]** button in **\[Render] - \[Bake]** to render the normal map. {% hint style="info" %} In **\[Render] - \[Bake] - \[Selected to Active]**, adjust the Extrusion value and Max Ray Distance value gradually to render a clean and sharp normal map. {% endhint %}

11. Click the Texture Paint button at the top to switch to Paint mode.

12. Cleanly modify the inner face using tools like Draw and Fill.

13. Click the Image - Save button to save the completed normal map.

{% hint style="danger" %} When saving, make sure to change the Color Space to \[**Non-Color]**. {% endhint %}

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