Creating Low poly, unwrapping and Baking
Spoon
Mandala
Lotus Bowl
Chest Box
Workflow
Creating a low poly
I first exported the high poly after decimating them to a rational poly count so it won't be too expensive while on my system while I'm creating the low poly or any adjustments. Then I proceeded to creating a lower poly count using decimation master. As I'm doing these parts that are loose can really be affected, so I decimated them until those parts kept their form but are still very low. Then I used Dynamesh to combined them into one, then proceed to Zremesh to give them a decent vertex flow. Then bring them into Blender and do a bit more adjustment if form becomes questionable or is causing any issue while baking.
The not clean meshes
The reason I have meshes with mutliple faces/verts is due to time concern. I'm creating a set and giving every item a very clean vertex will take time and given that a lot of engines can simplify these using auto-LOD features.
I've kept some details on unique sections to preserve crisp details.
Unwrapping
To optimize uv-maps, I shrunk parts that are not visible to the camera, and used latest Blender version to get an efficient packing. I used the UV stretch display to see any horrible stretching that could affect baking.
Shading
I've split the shader count for the low poly props inorder to have a uv map efficient enough to keep the details at a lower texture resolution. Primary example here is the Lotus Bowl. Since it's a hero prop, I've split it to 3 parts, and due to that, the UV for each can look less efficient (causing a bit more draw call) but it's a trade off for lower resolution textures for memory efficiency. This will be revisited if I find out more adjustments to uv won't affect the quality.
Up next
I'll be creating Base materials that will be a challenge to create in substance designer. Such as the lotus bow tile like material, the illustrations on the box and some noises to add to add micro details with such as wood grain and dents.
