Up until recently all of my models have been created with AO baked into the texture so they can be used in real time without using GameGuru's AO bake, however now that we have (next update) a built in real time SAO, i'm wondering if it's worth my time to continue this practice. I you don't want to use light mapping next update then you can have dynamic AO automatically, and if you want to light map you can bake AO with the light mapping. So AO baked into the textures seems redundant to me.

What do you guys think? Should I continue baking my own AO into the models textures just in case? or can I save a bit of time and space on the texture by producing the textures without AO? What are you guys going to do?

The only reason that I ever baked the AO into the texture was to give the models a little more depth.

With the advancements in the engine, it probably isn't worth the extra effort of waiting for a texture to be baked out. However, having said that, I would wait for the update and see what your models look like with and without. The AO that is baked in Blender is clean, smooth and noise free, whereas with GG, it won't be able to render as high quality AO, in real time, so, the model might not look as nice.

It will be trial and error.

Cheers

Jay.

Can you post a pic of you bake settings in blender for AO and textures please Jay?

I've always found they're very grainy and dark, I think I may not be using the correct settings.

I use the settings below.

Make sure you are in 'Blender Render' engine and NOT in Cycles. Then, change the samples from the standard 5, to 32.



Then, in the bake settings, I use the below.

Click normalise and I usually change the bleed to around 2 pixels (but, that's personal preference and doesn't really have any bearing on this).



This is the result. It will take a little longer to bake, but, the result is worth it. If you feel it's still not smooth enough, you can up the samples. This was baked to a 2048px texture.



Two minor points. If you are blending the AO over the diffuse texture, you can always use the blur tool a little, just to get the result a little smoother. Also, when you are creating your textures, go big. I start all of my textures as 4096px, then, scale them down. You can get more detail into a larger texture sheet. These details will be translated down to the smaller sizes, but, it's hard to get the good details in if you are starting at 512px.

Again, these are just my opinions and my work flow.

Cheers

Jay.

Thanks Jay, that really helps, I didn't even know those settings in world exist lol.

Wow, you're right, they d taker a lot longer to bake, but they're so much crisper!

I assume the same settings apply for the texture bake too?

Thanks a lot for the tip, I've been banging my head against a wall for ages trying to work out why my textures don't come out as well as they should, and think it's this

Do you mean when you are saving a hand painted texture from Blender? If so, then, yeah.

Glad I can help.

Cheers

Jay.

What i'm doing is adding textures via blender materials, lining them up in that then baking a texture from the render, it's easier than doing it by hand in GIMP, especially for things like brickwork, I just can't line it up by hand.

I think I need to do a more in depth texturing video. Really show you how to make the most of your textures.

I know you have been asking for one, but, this has spurred me on to make one.

It won't be immediate, but, I will get one sorted.

Cheers

Jay.

That would be awesome, and very much appreciated.