Set up a surface transfer with Turtle

High res objects that are sculpted, painted, and highly detailed also have topology and edge flow that are not appropriate for animating. Low res geometry is ideal for game design because it can be easily rigged and animated. You can transfer color, lighting, shading, and other information from a highly detailed mesh onto a low res version of the same mesh using texture baking. During the baking process, details from the high res mesh are stored in texture maps. Applying these textures to your low res geometry creates the illusion of detail without adding additional polygons.

To set up a surface transfer

  1. In your scene, place your low res and high res objects on top of each other in the same position.
  2. Open the Texture Baking View window (Windows > Material/Texture Baking Editors > Texture Baking).
  3. In Texture Baking View toolbar, click to open the Texture Baking Settings.
  4. In the Texture Baking Settings window, open the Baking tab and expand the Targets section.
  5. In the Outliner (Windows > Outliner), select your low res object.
  6. In the Targets section, click Add Selected to add the low res object to the Target Surfaces list.
  7. In the Outliner, select your high res object.
  8. In the Targets section, click Add Selected to add the high res object to the Source Surfaces list.
  9. In the Baking tab, do the following:
    • Select Bake To: Texture.
    • Adjust the Transfer Settings.

      Transfer settings determine the way Turtle samples from the low res object to the high res object to determine the detail it needs to create. For more information, see Baking tab.

    • In the Texture Bake Settings, select a directory to store your files. By default, files are stored in turtle/bakedTextures.
    • Adjust the Shader Outputs to control the type of information that is baked. For more information on specific workflows, see Transfer color textures with Turtle and Bake normal maps with Turtle.
  10. Open the Texture Baking View window (Windows > Materials/Texture Baking Editors > Texture Baking View).
  11. In the toolbar, click to initiate the texture baking.

Related topics

Parent topic: Bake textures with Turtle