How to Bake Perfect Normals in Blender - Tutorial

Blender tutorial showing you how to bake a normal map from a high poly model, to a low poly model.
Download starter file: drive.google.c...
CC-BY footage from Sintel, by Blender.org
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[@zerbah]

Here is a little update for anyone using Blender version 2.8x (in my case 2.83): 1. If you take a look at UV Mapping of the sculpted (highpoly) anvil model, you will see that most of the mesh that you were sculpting on is missing in the UVs. This causes problems for baking and makes the Normal map completely unusable. 2. To fix this, before doing baking, select first the low poly version of the anvil and then Shift select the new high poly sculpted one! That is the main catch. 3. In the Bake settings, you will see that the Ray Distance is set to 0 m - this needs to be changed to 0.05 or 0.04 (in my case). Also: - "Node mode" is called "Shading" in Blender 2.8x - "Color" in the Normal node is called "Color Space" (you need to set it to Non-Color). Hope this helps :)

[@Ottom8]

This helped Zerbah, thanks. But honestly, I'm still struggling. Some of my hi poly vertices are inside my low poly vertices. Will this cause my weird colors? I didn't follow his earlier tutorials exactly, because I like to experiment; so I'm wondering if the hi poly model has to be outside of the low poly model for the baking to function correctly. All help is appreciated. Thanks.

[@GaryParkin]

I was just going to write this. lol, you beat me to it. :D

[@velvet.velourr]

I'm using 2.9 version and this solution does not work for this problem, the normal map that gets created misses a lot of detail information. Doing the Andrew's way did not work too, don't know what do honestly.

[@velvet.velourr]

@Kamar el-Dawla Fawzy thank you for your reply but my image for the normal map is already 4K :( I'll try to increase the size of the islands

[@velvet.velourr]

@Kamar el-Dawla Fawzy increasing island sizes did not work at all

[@Jazzydada]

Using Blender 2.9 I succeeded the baking after hours of frustration and trial and error with the value Extrusion: 0,05 m, Max Ray distance:0,5 m, Output Margin: 2 px. Now I can finally move on to next chapter. Hope I can save someone else of this frustration with this info :-)

[@beytullahberk3632]

thank you man you saved my life

[@jaredcrown5812]

Thanks LOL i have 2.9 blender and I wasn't able to understand whats problem with my steps XD

[@jaredcrown5812]

Please pin this comment, It works.

[@luongminh8274]

Thank you sooo much, I've tried so many different settings but none of them worked until I read this comment!

[@KuroRadin]

Thank you! This still works. In my case I set Extrusion to 0.05 m, Max Ray Distance to 0.3 m, and Margin to 2 px. I recommend playing around with these values. Try to find the value that is closer to 0 m.

[@jeffersonadams8711]

I figured out how to get this to work in Blender 3.4.1 with only 30 seconds of extra work. No cages or other tutorials needed. Follow these steps: 1) Follow everything Andrew does up to 2:45. The "UV Image Editor" is just called the "UV editor" in the current Blender version, btw. 2) In the popup at 2:49 you _MUST_ check the "32-bit float" box!!!! Fill out everything else in the popup exactly as Andrew does. 3) Continue doing what Andrew does (make sure you select the correct anvils like he says) until you reach 5:34. 4) At 5:34, do *NOT* split the UV editor screen in half! Instead, click into your _SHADING_ tab. 5) In the node section (lower half of your screen) search for the "Image Texture" node and add it in like he does. Select "Normal" in the image texture node's drop-down menu like he does. 6) Making sure the "Image Texture" node is the last thing you've selected, click back to your "Layout" tab and hit "Bake". It should bake correctly now. 7) At 7:50, you have to press the ">" symbol next to the "Select to Active" checkbox to find the ray distance option. It's called "Max Ray Distance" in the current version. 8) At 9:57, you can plug in the image texture into the "normal" slot on your "Principled BSDF" node. You can also just insert the "Normal Map" between them after you do that. 9) At 10:24, the "non-color" option can be found in the "Color Space" drop down menu of your Image Texture node. 10) After doing all this, my anvil was solid purple, so I tried deleting and then re-adding/reconnecting my "MetalCorrodedHeav..." node and that fixed the problem. You may or may not have to, but try doing that if your anvil still looks purple. Make sure it's connected to the "Base Color" nub of the Principled BSDF node. You should be good to go after that. Now I can finally finish this tutorial!

[@RetrowaveVisions]

Thanks so much for this!

[@shokomann]

I will try that thank you

[@muralidharanpv1962]

Thnx

[@tranvietanh3324]

thank you sir !

[@meloon6426]

I really appreciate that🙏

[@Wildash]

5:39 "NODE EDITOR" IS "SHADER EDITOR" FOR LATER VERSIONS

[@francoiswessels8062]

Thanx so much man. I struggled for hours trying to figure out what the hell he is doing translating from 2.7 to 2.8

[@Hronotashilol]

Cheers mate!

[@Wildash]

@@Hronotashilol Cheers!

[@liamfarnes5783]

Omg this was stressing me out

[@Wildash]

@@liamfarnes5783 STRESS BEGON

[@Badinfluence4]

In Blender 2.8 for problem at 7:07, RAY DISTANCE is hidden as a drop-down under "Selected to Active" in the bake menu!

[@asinglelettuce598]

god bless you

[@anyeos]

Or you can use the addon TexTools that helps you bake all kind of images with simple options.

[@gregmontroni1348]

@@asinglelettuce598 Hahahaha I thought that too!!!

[@PaniPoziomkowa]

You are my hero! Thank you!

[@RR-kn1tg]

marry me

[@PaulsPickles]

In Blender 2.8 the Bake drop-down is located in Render, then change the Render Engine to Cycles. Once that's done scroll down and you should see Bake.

[@oreganopotatohead8901]

thank you!

[@samtung]

Thank you!

[@lmmao406]

Thank you

[@younesadi7958]

Thank you

[@ZenMonkeyGod]

Not all heroes wear capes.

[@alexandreboule-bouchard8468]

I've spent way too much time messing about since yesterday and only just found the answer I needed deep in the comments. If you use Blender 2.9 and follow Andrew's exact method, your normal map will look like total garbage. To fix this, add some extrusion when you bake your normal map, it's the setting just over the max ray distance setting. I don't know the optimal ammount of extrusion you should add, but I've tried 0.1 and 0.02 and both seemed to give the same (good) result. I kinda wish this tutorial would be remade for the current version, I wasted a lot of time on this

[@theogoes7]

tks man. Save my day

[@alejandrosoto9792]

Hi, my normal map looks like total garbage, but when andrew changed his extrusion to .05. You can tell the indents he made on the anvil. Mine only has the color smudged all around, and when I try to put it onto my anvil, it looks all pixelated for some reason. Any help?

[@drumboarder1]

@@alejandrosoto9792 sounds like either the uv being stretched or the resolution of the normal/bump map being too small

[@anthonyzheng7004]

the rest of my UV map is fine, but the horn has these creases and rib like lines, like the ones in the sculpting video, despite not being on my high poly mesh. My high poly mesh is fine. So does anyone know why these lines are appearing in the UV map?

[@beef4365]

@@anthonyzheng7004 i believe if you hold shift while in sculpt mode, it'll work as a smoothing brush and you can smooth out those edges

[@BatteryProductions]

You have the one of the best free blender videos out there man.. thanks..

[@blenderguru]

Cheers mate :)

[@LisaMiza]

Then Think about the paid once :o

[@MrMeissour]

@@blenderguru can you bake the final look into a texture? Ty

[@amanthangellapally2067]

@@MrMeissour yeah

[@valenticu]

Honestly, I've followed your doughnut and chair tutorial with little to no problem, but this is the one part that has me absolutely stumped. I've worked with baking in Maya, 3D Coat, and Substance Painter, and I am still trying bake this one object in Blender. I genuinely feel like a video just going more in depth with baking in Blender would be really helpful to a lot of viewers. I had to watch and troubleshoot so much stuff just to get working what would normally be simple in other programs, and I still am not completely happy with the results. Considering how important normal maps are in game dev, and the fact that a lot of users that use Blender typically don't have access to paid programs like Coat or Painter to generate normal maps easier, I feel like it'll be genuinely beneficial to your community to go in-depth with baking with the newer versions. Otherwise, good tutorials! I'm enjoying my slow migration from Maya to Blender : ) Cheers from Melbourne mate

[@derschnuff8819]

Hi Van, i am trying also to get a good looking bake. It seems in Blender 3.1, that wherever i placed seams for UV-Unwrapping, theyll show up in the Normalmap as sharp edges. The low-Poly-Modell is already subsurfed/rounded (Applied) so it does not have such sharp edges actually. They highpolymodell looks clean aswell. But for some reason ill get that sharp lines wherever a seam is in place. The magical non-color-data, 32-bitfloat or cage -trick is set aswell - no difference. Seems to me, that the bake at the UV-island-borders seems to have faulty information. Looking since three days to get rid of them. I already did this tutorial in 2018 and back then, it worked without such problems. So i wonder what has happened. Baking normals is a very basic tool that should simply work. Did you make any progress?

[@akramsafiyazov3404]

@@derschnuff8819 Hi mate, I'm struggling this same problem for days, and managed to fix it slightly by rounding the edges on LP completely and using shade smooth. Yet in deep cracks they still clip through. Have you resolved it yourself?

[@derschnuff8819]

@@akramsafiyazov3404 No Chance...and unfortunately no attention by any users in the community. If i am doing something wrong, nobody was able to tell me what setting/action is causing the problem. It is very frustrating. Adding additional geometry might help, but is a normal map not the reason to keep the final poly extremly low & simple in the first place?

[@akramsafiyazov3404]

@@derschnuff8819 I kept the mesh geometry as it is. In the LP moving edge loops on sharp edges by double G more to the flat center may help round them, so the clipping is less visible

[@tondann]

You should have T-Shirts saying "Switch it to Non-Color Data" :D

[@zackmercurys]

non-color dah-tah.

[@MrNobodyX3]

"Switch to non-color data" On a tie die shirt

[@MrDoboz]

also one with "ctrl+alt+shift+c" and one with "apply object scale"

[@nathanielwier8972]

With a vector portrait of Andrew I would buy all of these shirts

[@absolutsolo2763]

I'd buy one.

[@BadiArt]

the reason i like love this man and his tutorials is : he always has that face, i learned something new and im gonna share it with you guys. keep it up andrew

[@Lumpappsofficial]

@3:53 No need to control-C and Control-V Just click and drag from the first to the second value. There you go, little trick :)

[@samdavepollard]

super useful; had no idea that was possible; many thanks

[@super_lito]

Andrew: *gives instruction* Me: *pause the video and proceedes to apply instruction* Andrew: But that's the wrong way! This is the right way *gives another instruction* Me: *ctrl+z ctrl+z ctrl+z ctrl+z...*

[@misriahproductions6280]

blender freezes and screen goes white me:ohhh s%$t! Did I save?

[@Mistery1307]

@@higorss Well, I definitely mostly agree with you there, but for such a quick little tip like this, I think it's completely fair to just learn the exact steps needed rather than develop your own workflow for such a simple thing that would be better just to have as muscle memory of the exact steps.

[@notbanned6158]

@@higorss the whole point of "copying" is getting the steps down. That is what these tutorials are for.

[@okie1630]

@@higorss Doing in your own isn't learning either. Although I'm not gonna enlight a possible troll or whatever.

[@higorss]

@@okie1630 But this is what a modeller that worked in Avengers Infinity War told me (Andrew Hodgson)... Well I guess he's wrong.

[@nulkecola]

Other things to know about normal maps. 1 / you can bake multiple objets on a low poly mesh (selected to active) 2 / all objects must be in the same shading, all "smooth" or all "flat".

[@valentina.b.4867]

thank you very much. I got some weird "stripes". With smooth shading on both object... it worked perfect! :)

[@cmendes1]

same, thank you !

[@LawrenceAaronLuther]

yatta! That did it! Thank you thank you thank you...

[@Blend3d]

So glad I read your comment, My second simple mesh was not set to smooth and the horn had strips down it's length, Thanks for posting!

[@NyanSpider]

Thanks

[@melbendigo]

I almost bailed, but was able to follow with help from the comments and googling. It would be great if this video could be annotated to have a little note pop up whenever something is done a little differently. Because it's a great tutorial, just needs a little updating so people can follow in newer versions.

[@anastasianikolayevnaromano612]

Hii what did you do? I'm struggling with the baking part :c When I hit bake It stays black

[@melbendigo]

@@anastasianikolayevnaromano612 I'm so sorry, Anastasia, I don't remember what I did. I would have to do the tutorial over to remember what I did, but I do remember that the bake took quite a while, and I thought it was just black. I walked away and came back to my computer after a while and there it was, baked. But I know to get through it, I just to read comments and google around whenever I got stuck. If you get too stuck, I would say go on to other tutorials about baking then come back another time. I have lots of older tutorials on hold until a later time when I'm able to translate it easier ;-)

[@anastasianikolayevnaromano612]

@@melbendigo Thank you! I resolved the problem

[@pikachufan25]

@@anastasianikolayevnaromano612 i know you resolve the issue but just for other people to know :D in "Bake" there is "Bake Type" Change the "Bake Type" from "Combine" to "Normals"

[@anasselidli8233]

@@anastasianikolayevnaromano612 how did you fix it please?

[@dimawom]

[ Blender version 3.0 ] Maybe will help somebody, who tried everything but still has green/orange colors on NM. I'm also a beginner, and I found this solution works for me: 1. On your low-poly model try to slightly move some loopcuts, especially in the places where you have those glitches. Check them in the UV Editing tab. But don't touch seams. 2. Use shrinkwrap modifier on lo-poly (and the target will be hi-poly), with small amount of the offset (0.002m for me). 3. In render section temporarily change max samples to about 100, and turn off denoiser. 4. In Bake section leave Extrusion at 0, and play just with Max Ray Distance. For me the best value of MRD was 0.0005m 5. Also here in Bake - Output I put 1 px for Margin. Maybe I am wrong, but it seems to be more small details on NM with this value. 6. So play with Ray Distance, and when you-re satisfied, turn Max Samples back to 4096 and Bake It!

[@soumyakantigiri]

For those who have maintained realistic proportions of the anvil stretching no more than a meter. Reduce the max ray extrusion in micrometers to avoid some surfaces which are cm's away from each other like the circular hole. For me, it worked at 0.000005 m or 5 μm.

[@WinterzFreeze]

Thank you, that would have been frustrating had I not seen this

[@Deehn]

For 3.2.x+ -You should not have to change max ray distance but only extrusion & margin possibly - To find the correct extrusion number, you can easily measure what is the biggest bump on your high poly model compare to the low poly model (Layout space - side view - Measure ). -Once you have this, input it in the extrusion (in the Bake properties). For me, it was 14mm. Set the margin at 2px, and select the High poly first then low poly. - If you get some solid colour in your normal map, then adjust accordingly the extrusion to be higher or lower by small increment until you erase all solid colours (generally, higher will be the answer). The bigger the solid colour areas, the bigger the increase is likely to be. For instance, if you tried 14mm and get large colour area, go for 20mm. If very small area, try a sensible 16mm ... etc This workflow worked for me, hopefully it is helpful.

[@stripes8825]

I was really close of giving up on this tutorial, just because of this problem, I've spent at least 3 hours trying to find out what's wrong, this totally fixed it, thank you so much for it !!

[@emissaryfromhell951]

thanks

[@kennythefatnord]

You're a fucking babe for this thank you

[@kenterte]

works in blender 4, thanks!

[@user-qo6fg7cm4y]

One of the best tutorial on the internet for this topic! Not only teaches how to bake normals map in blender but also teaches how to solve problem that may arrive during the process such as ray distance , green blob , ect .

[@user-ex6pk6fh4p]

Video: lasts 13min. Me: Spent 5 hours to do it. Tnx for the tutorial!

[@gamesbeards4337]

Congrats on the big news bro ! Hope your girl will teach us Blender v8.5 tutorials once she starts tutoring for Blender Guru. Btw for anyone asking about how Andrew learned to use Blender this well on his own - he has a time machine, so he went to the future, watched his own tutorials and then came back with that knowledge. There's no other explanation.

[@64br13l2008]

Andrew: It will take you about 30 seconds My PC: this little maneuver is gonna cost us 51 years

[@SEZMALOIN]

That makes no sense

[@nexustarget442]

@@SEZMALOIN how?

[@davi.alexandre]

@@SEZMALOIN "is this some sort of peasant joke that i'm too rich to understand?"

[@_Shinique]

"It's been.... 84 years." - Titanic Reference

[@thecakeredux]

You sharing this knowledge is an invaluable gain to the world. It literally enables people who can hardly afford the machine they're viewing this on to build a set of skills that may eventually pull them out of poverty and open up new markets and opportunities for them and that isn't even taking into consideration how much entertainment you bring and how you improve the recreational activities of your viewers. Thanks.

[@Bordie3D]

This video I think was when I REALLY got interested in 3D. Tricking light into giving you amazing detail is just amazing to me. And really hecken satisfying!

[@cvic9842]

I clicked bake instantly and it baked it perfectly first time without setting up anything, I won't question it

[@francoiswessels8062]

Same thing happened to me at first. Then I copied a previous backup of a blender file and tried again without success 🤔

[@AltimaNEO]

The normal gods smiled upon you that day. Hope you bought a lottery ticket!

[@emiremiremiremiremiremiremir]

@@AltimaNEO nice pfp

[@ZackZack-ib8qx]

If you use 2.9 and changing the ray distance doesn't fix the normal map, change the extrusion to 0.04 (or something around that) and the max ray distance to 0 and it should work.

[@botobeni]

haha thx

[@FlamezGamingandmore]

thankyou bro and thank God for this comment section or else i would have been lost

[@michealstephenson2716]

Worked for me in 3.3

[@emilalibekov]

I love you so much! I didn't sleep all night and day just to complete this! Not joking! Your videos are the best!

[@doggiedog936]

This was extremely helpful and a week ago I gave up with making my own maps, this gave me the knowledge to do so and be more creative with my project in Unity.

[@Braindrain85]

Great tutorial! A few corrections, though. "Normal maps cost nothing in performance" is not true. Especially if you use a lot of 4k textures (like the one you baked). Those textures have to be stored in memory, too. You probably can't use your normal map in DirectX-Based engines (Unreal) properly without a little tweak (because Blender is OpenGL-Based). When they look weird in engine, try flipping the green channel (Y-Channel) either directly when baking, in Photoshop or in engine.

[@CustomPhase]

Also need to mention that sampling ANY texture also introduces some performance overhead. The more textures you need to sample from - the worse the performance will be.

[@AllNameAreGone]

that is also why, in game development, the normal map is usually of a lower resolution than the albedo, since the albedo shows the detail you see first. you can get away with a lower resolution for the normal map. the glossy and normal textures are also often combined into one texture, where the alpha channel of the normal map is the glossy texture, to save on memory.

[@blenderguru]

That's true. A better statement would be "next to no performance difference". Textures do add a slight overhead, but it's pretty insignificant to offline renderers. And yeah I probably should have mentioned the normal map types for those exporting to another rendering engine.

[@ChrisD__]

AllNameAreGone Woah, that's probably the most useful comment on KZbin.

[@Fafhrd42]

Also Normal Maps don't contain height data. They contain angular data. (well, Normal data, but you know what I mean). If you have a subdivided face with a bunch of extrusions and a single face that is parallel to all the extruded faces and bake a normal map from the subdivided face to the non-subdivided one, you'll get a flat purple image. If you bevel all the edges, then the bake will pick up the curvature of those edges.

[@seekerrekees]

For Blender 3.2: Select the LOW POLY anvil FIRST, then shift select the HIGH POLY anvil. In my case, setting the Extrusion to around 0.12m worked (I left the max ray distance to 0). Hope this helps!

[@ripits_62]

Thanks!

[@tamerlaneSF]

It worked! After many hours of struggling, I finally got every step in place and it worked like a charm. If you make multiple attempts to bake this and it comes out wrong, it helps to delete some of the extra images and textures before trying again.

[@WooperGamerYT]

whenever I do this it says it found no UV on the high poly anvil

[@tjseries3057]

@@WooperGamerYT you are supposed to select the high poly first then the low poly. Of you select the high poly after the low poly, the blemder will think you are trying to bake to the high poly that happens to have no uvs

[@vietanhtran1802]

bro, work for me too. I tried all the high poly first then low poly but it didnt work for me. Thank god i saw your comment and tried to select low poly first

[@_MKVA_]

6 years later..using Blender 4.0 and your video is the only one I can find that explains this correctly.

[@JoelMacarioArt]

Make a 2.8 complete tutorial like this one please. not only the interface changed but also what happens in different actions.

[@cosmovate4081]

Hi! I don't think you should download 2.8 right now because its still under development. Also You must focus more on 2.79 version because It will give you a good grip over blender and when you feel comfortable with it you can then download the new version because there will be a minor change in it... Also by then you will get the original version... Better than Beta. And you will then be good to go. Hope this helped : )

[@naveentechs]

@@cosmovate4081 now we do need a 2.8 ver

[@Manas-co8wl]

Yeah I already modeled the donut, plate, spoon, chair and now this. Just one more modeling with uv unwrap/sculpt/texturing in version 2.8 and I think I'm good to go on my own.

[@JM-ty6uq]

@@Manas-co8wl I feel the same way! I would have been absolutely lost if I started on this tutorial, however, after doing the donut, plate and spoon tutorial I felt comfortable finding the tools in the 2.8 locations in order to follow this one.

[@Thunderbird1337]

I've done this tutorial in Blender 2.8.1 and it wan't a problem at all.

[@phosfine7793]

Please do a "Customizing the Interface" video for the new people, sometime! The high customizability and freedom of workflow is one of the things that really makes Blender stand out from other software, and I feel like you don't quite talk about it enough.

[@TheBcoolGuy]

I've watched this before, but I needed to refresh my knowledge on how to do this. Thanks!

[@abhishekchaturvedi3078]

You are a life saver! I have been going mad looking for guides on how to do a lot of this stuff in Blender for the last month and a half. Most tutorials end up beating around the bush and going off into odd and convoluted things that end up being clear as mud, but yours got to the point, and was easy to follow. Thanks a ton for the video!

[@swerrving5398]

For Blender 3.0 and above users!! I kept getting a mustard artifact for my whole normal map regardless of the Extrusion, Ray Distance, and Margin values. My fix: In the Overlays options along the top menu bar, turn on Face Orientation. If you see any red, it means your normals are facing the wrong direction. Select the mesh, tab to edit mode, select all vertices (a), alt + N for Normal options, then Recalculate Outside. This should turn everything blue, and you should be good to go! From here, my settings were: Extrusion: 0.03 m Ray Distance: 0 Margin: 16 px Hope this helps :)

[@blundy1]

*This* portion of the tutorial is fairly outdated now that 2.9x is out. It is pretty significantly different. I managed to get through it with some extra time and reading comments below. For the bake, playing with the extrusion settings and max ray distance (all below 0.5) and the output margin pixels helped get a cleaner bake.

[@benv.4036]

I don't know if this was mentioned but a Subdivision Surface modifier can mess up baking a normal map. It's easy to forget the modifier was added to your object if you set the Viewport setting to 0. The baking process uses the Render setting from the modifier when baking. Hopefully, that info will be useful to someone and save them the confusion I was going through. :-)

[@talafenrith7042]

Thank you!!! This was driving me mad, but your suggestion fixed it. Initially my normal map was completely misaligned when applied to the low poly model, but after removing the subdiv modifier on the lowpoly and re-baking it aligned perfectly. Phew!

[@talafenrith7042]

I should mention, this is using Blender 3.4.1

[@maglerdon]

One of the best channels on KZbin. Sincerely appreciate you Andrew, and what Blender Guru is doing for the Blender community! Thank you guys!

[@Aiyoros]

You are really a Blender Guru =)

[@toresubas7778]

he is Blender God...

[@smortonmedia]

Update for Blender 2.91 users: Use "Extrusion" instead of Max Ray Distance - for me, a 0.06 m worked well while keeping Max Ray Distance at 0 m. After an hour or so of farting around and trying the cage method, I finally tried Extrusion for the first time and it actually worked, to my surprise. The other thing: making sure your models are in the same collection... this sorta changes the order in which the objects are selected (shift clicking rather than ctrl clicking to select them) and I have no idea why this is a thing, but that seemed to make a difference for me. It's completely anecdotal, so I have no idea if it was truly a contributing factor or not. I'm a beginner, so just sharing anyways, hope this helps!

[@smortonmedia]

@@pd178 In render settings > Cycles > Bake tab... when you check the box "Selected to Active" you can expand the menu for that by hitting the arrow. There, you will see 3 options... checkbox for "Cage", "Extrusion", and then "Max Ray Distance"

[@TrippyRexTech]

thank you man, you saved me

[@kojifrahm5022]

savior. moving it into the same collection seemed to be the key

[@smortonmedia]

@@kojifrahm5022 so glad I could help!

[@f4ust85]

Thanks man.

[@YueFoundChan]

Quick Tip! If you're wondering why you can see creases and lines on your normal map after baking, it's because your subdivision mod render is low. Upping the levels viewport doesnt do poo (obvs, I know that now). Up those numbers and it will be smooooothed out. Time saved: 3 hours. You're welcome.

[@Raidoven]

Love your presentation method. Having your face there really helps keeping the viewers attention!

[@Crippley]

I love it when the tutorials show what can go wrong and how to fix it, thank you!

[@cornerliston]

10:30, non colour data now (2.8) found in the colour space drop down.

[@davidskinner6781]

It won't let me select the drop down :(

[@arunparmar7655]

You have to save the normal map before you can edit the colour space.

[@taminaion7122]

6:39 UV Unwrap High Res Mesh Before attempting BAKE!

[@tomaspetruz7774]

OMG FINALLY! took me a day of struggle to get successful results as in the video, just unwrapped them both again (the high-poly took like forever) and strange cuts and fancy colours disappeared from the uv-map..literally saved me many more hours of increasing ray distance and watching other tuts :D

[@AmBush2048]

Are you kidding me? Why is this not mentioned anywhere? Why was it not in the video?

[@taminaion7122]

@@AmBush2048 Even great people forget things ;3

[@zaulix2010]

holy jesus man, u are soo cool, i was looking for tutorials in spanish because i'm mexican but, never found a guy who explained the blender tools like you, THANK YOU SO MUCH! now i'm starting a lot of projects i wanted to just because of you, ty bro, u rock, and keep doing what you do! ;D

[@djakelly]

Thank you so much for making these instructional videos. You have really lowered the barrier of entry for many people to get started with blender. Well done sir.

[@AgustinCaniglia1992]

11:30 didn't expect that! Really cool. learning from you is really great. I hope you make a lot of blender 2.8 tutorials!

[@aqryllic]

2.93 user here. For those having problems with the high poly model having no UV map, it doesn't need one and no material either. In my case, I had to select the low poly one first (which you're going to bake the normals to) and then the high poly one (the one which you've sculpted) and then press bake. My bake settings were Extrusion set to 0.01m and Max Ray Distance set to 0.06m, yours may differ slightly. Make sure to have a texture node in the materials of the low poly model so the normal map can be assigned there. If you have problems, I may be able to help.

[@YunPiaoMiaoLinWuShuang]

3.0 here. I follow your instruction and it worked (select low poly first and then high poly one). But the layer stuff confuses me. I made different layer but all objects appear in the same layer :/

[@LifeOfPooPoo]

Thank you. Blender deleted my UV from the high poly model, like wtf? I tried to quickly make another sculpting and I noticed dyntypo deletes parts of the UVs, the more I sculpted the more it was dissapearing. Wierd. Good to know we don't need the UV tho.

[@sirmiles1820]

man, you are the best tutorial's person out there for us blender users. Thank you very much for this. I hope you the best for all eternity!

[@nano7586]

This is so interesting.. I really can't explain. Most people find this stuff boring and whenever I try to explain similar things to friends they get easily bored. But this is just stunning to me and I'd like to learn more about it.

[@therubysniper9892]

For blender 3.0 users. Ray distance is now called extrusion and Max ray distance is best kept to unlimited. hope this saves a headache.

[@aguysomewhere8277]

Thank you! You did indeed avert at least one headache here!

[@derschnuff8819]

OH MY GOD.....I was already wondering. Thank you for that information. Why do the devs renaming all this stuff into "it was once this, but now it is this"...super confusing for users.

[@dimus63]

When I save normal map I also check 'Save as Render' checkbox, because it converts final image to correct RGB values for render (neutral value has to be #8080FF). It saves you from lots of aggravation if you import maps to a game engine and you have highly visible seams where different islands of your normal map meet together.

[@candiceosler9903]

Currently doing your Doughnut tutorial - have to say Thank You so mega much! Using blender for 3d print design - it's a world new world for me - but your tutorials have made it so much less daunting! Thanks a million! 😉

[@caysebarry3949]

thank you so much blender guru from 5 years ago!

[@RAFLAMOLAO]

Blender Guru: "You wanna make sure that both the high poly and low poly mesh are sharing the same position" Me: " O_O " Me: *Goes back to the previous video* Blender Guru: "Before we do any detail, make a copy of your current mesh and put it on a new layer" Me: "GG..." *closes Blender*

[@monochroma4045]

u can still retopologize the high poly mesh to get a low poly mesh

[@grayjackgaming1746]

I completely missed that step as well! In the last video I refused to do the dyntopo because it would ruin the texture image. Now I realize why that wasn't working for me.

[@pd5156]

He is refering to low poly as an object before apply subdivision modifer and then sculpting or much before that?EDIT. ok I asked before starting video :D

[@juansebastianpacheco8014]

SUPER F

[@Manas-co8wl]

🤣 Hey man that's what his starter file is for it's okay you followed through right?

[@CaptainBlaine]

This tutorial is a total nightmare in 3.0. Please remake this one!

[@LastresortRealOne]

this guy... honestly, one of the best tutors on youtube :D thanks for uploading!

[@stevenb4956]

3:30 you can also change both values at the same time. Just click on one value and drag your mouse over the other value (while still holding the mouse button down) then let go and it will allow you to change them both at the same time. No copy paste required. The same works for changing the location of an object, its scale, dimensions, etc.

[@kojifrahm5022]

In 2.93 -- at 2:40 -- Split the window by going to the same corner of the panel as Andrew and you should see the curser turn into a cross-hair, hold and drag left and you will automatically create a new window. Switch it to Image Editor by clicking on the button in the top left corner of the new panel (icon changes depending on mode) and it should drop down display many types of editor modes--- choose Image Editor. Then you will see what Andrew sees and at the top center (not bottom like him) you will see the add Image option. Close windows (I had to look this up) by taking the window you DO want to keep, and click-hold dragging it OVER the adjacent windows you want to close (you should see an arrow pop up) and it will automatically close those windows covered by arrows. Bake option will only show up if you have Cycles as your Render Engine (if you have it on Eevee you won't see it) Baking normal -- (from other comments) -- Make sure your low-poly anvil and sculpted are in the same collection. Extrusion .06 Max Ray 0 Margin 2px In the Normal Node, you can't change the Color Space drop-down until you (within the same node) change what file the node is pointing at -- switch from the Normal that we started with to the new Normal map we saved "Normal.001" or whatever you saved it as (although mine didn't show the full file name).

[@ScikSiL]

i love the way you explain Blender Guru tnks for

[@amadkhalid8913]

I thought I had UV texture problems and tried to fix it using people's comments. But I later realised that my problem was that the faces on my UV mapping were overlapping, so I went back to my UV mapping on the low poly mesh and separated the overlapping faces and the problem was fixed. Spent a day to find the solution but it was a simple solution lol. Great problem-solving experience. Hope this helps anyone that has a similar problem where the texture didnt seem right and was cutting through in some areas.

[@aneeqtariq2311]

No other fucking guy explained why do we bake high-poly onto low poly. Thanks again to Andrew. U should not be blender guru, instead 3d guru as no one explains theories, they just tell u how to do something

[@viliamzaborsky4300]

THIS 12 MINUTES TUTORIAL TOOK ME MORE TIME TO DO IN BLENDER THAN OTHERS 40 MINUTES ONES.

[@wa-elegyforsmashultimate8007]

I've used 4 hours trying to make the cuts go away :(

[@yevhen737]

For newer blender versions (Blender 3.3.1 +) Use CAGE while baking (see for tutors on youtube)

[@jessart89]

Do you have a tutorial to recommend? I tried the cage and didn't have a good result

[@giovanni_papini]

@@jessart89 well, there´s tutorial in YT, I haven´t proved it yet, but it seems this is a god tutorial. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fWe8lGaYYph6nKM, but what I wanna know, is why is this method better? or if there is any difference between the two of them.

[@phoenixtwo87]

Been trying this, but no matter what I just get the "invalid cage object" even though I just followed Grant Abbitt and Blender Secrets Cage tutorials. Took the low poly Anvil, duplicated, alt-S to scale on the normals, held shift and made the new cage object cover everything. Deselected everything, selected high poly first, ctrl click to select low poly. Switched to cage in bake settings, set the new cage as the target, "invalid cage object the cage mesh must have the same number of faces as the active object". I've played around with selection order, no dice, same error.

[@talafenrith7042]

+1 definitely use Cages! This sorted it for me (plus removing subdiv modifier on low poly mesh before baking). Grant Abbitt's "Baking Perfect Texture Maps Using a Cage | Blender 2.8" video gave a really clear explanaton on how to do this. Man, it's so nice to have this working after shouting at it for so long ':)

[@talafenrith7042]

@@phoenixtwo87 are you cage and low poly meshes linked? separating them (press P in edit mode when you only have the [whole] cage mesh selected, and not the low poly mesh selected) should help with this I think. The cage also has to be exactly the same as the low poly object, only scaled up.

[@shokomann]

Im gonna be honest I stay away from 5 year old tutorials ^^ first time really stuck here

[@akashverma4280]

The amount of response his video gets is the proof that people always love free stuff! BTW nice video, left a like

[@Topplethepyramid]

Dammit, this is where it all breaks down for me. Nothing is as Andrew describes it...

[@ferbragga]

Ok... Blender 2.93 here - If you keep getting mustard colour even though you read all comments and already changed the Margin, Extrusion and Max Ray Distance settings... this is how I fixed it. Select one of the objects, hit tab to go into edit mode and press Shift + N to recalculate the normals. Do it for both anvils and bake again!

[@emmanuelbellocq1572]

You are my hero of the day!

[@leitrotro]

Man, I wish you prosperity in life

[@RaichuWizDom]

Yup. A lot of people don't realise this completely free 3D modelling, texturing, and rendering software comes with a built-in calculator. I only learned it from Tony Mullen's old book, actually ^^ Great tutorial, and one additional remark: the added detail from normal maps isn't just useful in props or backgrounds, or skin. You can also use it for eyes. When you look at something like Cars-style eyes or Sonic, or especially Filly Funtasia's characters, who have actual eyeballs and not windshields, you can see the edges of the irises disappear when rotating as if the eyes were spherical, but the light hits them as if it's the usual saucer shape; the specular reflection isn't painted on like it so often is in these 3D cartoons. So you can use normal maps to make a cartoony style, too, not just pure realism.

[@Stefan-sm8ex]

Wow! Just as I started learning Maya, BlenderGuru started posting one of his best videos, which is the whole Anvil playlist. I am so surprised that he keeps his work with so much detail so that even the beginners can understand everything he does without a big effort, so that even harder stuff will seem simple. I wish there was such a video artist like him who would work in Maya with so much care. Most of them make mistakes in the video which make you remember and repeat, even though it's wrong, besides some bad explanation. I will love you forever, fore you were the one who got me into 3D modeling, and also you were the one who made me start a career on it. You surprise me every time you upload a video, making me see how you put more and more effort in each and every one of them. I will always wait for the "New tutorial" as I will never know enough in 3D art. ~Stefan Sorescu

[@MMQ4]

I ve got a problem, well i baked everything directly way that Andrew did, but when i came to render, all scrathes, sculped details were in weird spots, for example, a line that should be on the top edge, was on the base of Anvil, could you help me ?

[@MMQ4]

Brent Schriemer thanks for your advice man, i will try i tommorow, hope it will help, if not i dont have an idea what can be wrong

[@HollowedEmpire]

I had the same problem too. For me, it turned out to be from scaling up the UV coordinates from the previous video, to make it repeat the texture since it would wrap around and repeat it. Because of that, it only baked part of the model onto my normal map, and the UV coordinates were repeating this partial bake over the rest of the model, causing random parts to appear all over. Just scale down the UV coordinates on the lower poly model so it all fits into the image, and rebake it. This goes along with what Brent was saying too.

[@MMQ4]

HollowedEmpire okey Bro, can u tell me how to scale down UV coordinates ? Im guite new at blender and im still learning, i need exact instructions

[@HollowedEmpire]

Sure! First have the 3D view and the UV/Image windows open like in the tutorial. You first select the low poly model in the 3D view while in edit mode (tab to enter edit mode, A, A to select all), and then you'll see the geometry in the UV/Image window. In that UV/Image window, select all, and then press S to scale. You can then scale down the geometry to fit within the image bounds. After that rebake, and it should all fit inside properly and also tile correctly across the model.

[@makulVR]

Thanks! That's exactly the way it works! Thank you!

[@MX-of3yb]

I love your tutorials man!

[@blindlight]

in blender 3.2, I was able to select high poly first, then low poly, then bake with extrusion .05, max ray distance .1, margin size 2px. initially my max ray distance was too low and not reaching the deeper indents I had sculpted. if you are not seeing the deepest part of your cuts, try increasing the max ray distance

[@joshf6386]

I had been hoping you would do a Normal Map tutorial for the longest time. Thanks Andrew.

[@joselucasdasilva7317]

If you're having problems baking. Ignore the Ray Distance, at most of the time you can set it to zero. Just change the extrusion. In my case, I change the extrusion to 0.034m and worked very well.

[@michaelwisniach2241]

Thank you, this method worked best for me in Blender 3.2 as well, with a model that has a lot of finer details.

[@HariEdoTV]

There should be a simple script that automates the "make a new 4k texture, make a new material, apply it all to the active object" dance that you just did. Similar to the script which does the "import image as plane" workflow. It's little everyday but tedious tasks like this which give serious Blender adoption such a bad time.

[@FelheartX]

Hey Andrew, I really have to thank you for your videos. I'm a programmer and I needed some placeholder assets for a game. With your videos I'm able to actually make them myself instead of having to rely on others. Sure they're not perfect but I can make tons of props now. In one of your earlier vidoes you said that one simply "deconstructs" shapes in their head to imagine how to build them; and that's such a powerful concept. I didn't think I could do it. Thanks again man!

[@cavegentleman6157]

"[Normal maps] create the illusion of height information without costing you anything in render times." @0:09. Dude, thank you. I've reeeeeally needed someone to explain the significance of a "normal" map in such practical terms. My noob brain sees the word "normal" and assumes "basic color and shading" (i.e. diffuse). Now I get it. Thank you again. Liking and subscribing fo' sho.'

[@MrTrockc]

Thank you that is awesome! Also I would love to see more videos related to video game development :)

[@BearShankDave]

On my final render I'm still able to see the creases or lines of the mesh. It looks similar to how the horn did pre-smoothing, but over the entire anvil.

[@malikdavis1754]

Same issue! Anyone?

[@CubeRepublic]

Hey there, you need to be using a cage when baking normals or you'll get terrible seams when you use it in an engine. Quick way to do this is to copy you're low poly and either alt S resize it in edit mode or use a displacement modifier with a small amount of inflation to encapsulate the mesh. Also it's good practice to triangulate before baking so your seams will match in whatever engine you use.

[@Nonoka_S]

When I got this beautiful anvil, I was so happy!) Thanks Andrew)

[@ferencbanu_tattoo]

Make sure that you've applied your scale transforms before baking. Took me 2 hours to realize that's why my normal map appeared flat in some parts.

[@blaupunkt1221]

For blender 2.93: If anyone else has the problem that the normal stays black even though you baked, make sure to go to "image" and then click "reload" or just press alt + r in the image editor.

[@alanclark1146]

This may not be up to date, but it is pointing me in the right direction, and now i can see i am going to be able to do things i only dreamt of. with out making my old iMac sweat a lot...

[@playproduction8853]

Thx man for yet another great video. Although I've been using normal maps for the last few years, all of them were made by others. This is the first one I've created myself. *feeling proud

[@PommernStudiosOfficial]

For everyone who uses a newer version 2.8 (and higher) of Blender. Check out this tutorial instead: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eoKzm3x9o8iLma8 I hope I could help. Make sure, that nothing is overlapping.(In the UV Editing Tab) If you want to change something in the Normal Map, go to "Texture Paint" and draw with a white Brush. (Blender don't understand the Information of a white Color in a Normal Map. Therefore it does not affect to the texture of the mesh either.)

[@jonathanwalsh6001]

Oh man, information overload, but all good in the hood.

[@vlogginggabes3864]

I have it in 2x speed

[@paulspalace4233]

APPRECIATE your hard work and great tutorials hope your life is going amazing especially with that baby girl you got now !

[@that_guyu_know6019]

I've been looking at every video so far about cavities and they all did this method, I was so confused why until I saw this, Guru is probably the best teacher I've had for Blender

[@AntonioRivera28]

This helped me more than you know

[@theAndrewkin]

No amount of smoothing in the sculpt phase prevents my mesh from having those distinct lines in the horn for the final baked normal map. Any idea what that's happening?

[@yyyy890oh]

When you create the bump texture click on 32 bit float. This adds more resolution for the heights to blend in to.

[@orsonredpath7193]

Just when i decided to really research normal map ,this video pop up. Oh and just wanted to say thank you for helping me get started with 3d a few years ago. :)

[@MirceaKitsune]

I knew about normal map baking to some extent, but not this far in. Thank you for another wonderful tutorial, this was very helpful!

[@julianeisenschmidt6372]

OUTDATED! ⚠@BlenderGuruOfficial Please update to Blender >3.2. - Thx for Donut & Chair Tutorials! 👍 For those who are struggling, i recommend these two baking-vids: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eoKzm3x9o8iLma8 kzbin.info/www/bejne/qp_HhnVrl5mGiqs My Baking-Specs: Extrusion: 0,03 m (0,05 m also works), Max Ray distance: 0 m (some have 0,5 m), Output Margin: 2 px Don't forget to save the Normal as Picture on your PC, or you have to do your baking again. After restarting the PC and Blender, i had to re-open the normal into the shader-node, even tho it already was connected. Don't know why. Some comment was telling to apply it, but i don't know how atm. Good luck 😛

[@samieisanartist8883]

Thank you!!!! Those 2 tutorials you linked worked perfect :)

[@timthamm9739]

thank you so much very helpful and saved a lot of time

[@boogerjuice_irl]

Does anybody know why I might be getting untextured flat spots all across my otherwise textured normal map? I feel like I've tried everything at this point. I'm stuck.

[@rowdybaby2751]

me 2

[@Rigiroony]

Dude thank you. This was the only tutorial that worked for some reason

[@KameramanVideo]

wow! at last i understood what was baking needed for ))) stupid old thing am i ))) you're GREAT TEACHER! )))