PBR Bakers Comparison - Designer - Knald - XNormal - Toolbag

[@mustafaaltan4501]

You're one of the best people I've ever seen. Thank you very much

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thank you Mustafa :), just trying to share my findings with everyone so people can save some time and learn from my mistakes :)

[@UnrealArtist]

Damn,, do you have enough time to make such a comprehensive video? Great stuff

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thanks, I really dont :) and this is why it takes me so much time to make a single video

[@monish05m]

Wow, one of the best comparison videos i have ever seen, thanks, please do more such videos this was phenomenal.

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thank you :), veeeery appreciated

[@petertremblay3725]

Best breakdown i have seen on bakers, Xnormal still the best for me except for the AO rendering time but i have substance designer so i bake my AO there and the rest in Xnormal since i have better result from NM and displacement nothing beat the quality of it even AO but the rendering time is a no go!

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thank you

[@AshT8524]

Thank you for making this, Somehow it was very entertaining to watch, I leaned a lot :)

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Glad to hear that, you are welcome :)

[@gitarrtoken]

Love ur work! Cant wait for the next video!

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thank you

[@outdoorstours]

You have a very nice channel, just great and unique content from you. I wish you all the best. Thanks for sharing. Have a great day!

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thank you veeeeeery much

[@sandnerdaniel]

Very well made and thorough comparison video, thanks!

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

You are welcome :D

[@i200479]

many thanks for the in-depth insight and the presentation. More of this please!💪

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

You are welcome :D

[@snowinchina5531]

good comparison, i like that you included a lot of technical limitations

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thank you very much :), I am really happy to know you found it useful.

[@kalerurelaxingmusic]

Thanks for putting this video together, it's beautiful! We support your channel

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thank you :)

[@mauerchisp4814]

Grzergorz! I've been watching your videos, and they're really educative! I wanna Thank you, you have helped me a lot! Take care! Greetings from Mexico! c:

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thank you very much :), means a lot. Cheers!

[@NicolaiBecker]

Very helpful. Thx for the comparison!

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thanks Nicolai, and you are welcome :)

[@minhson138]

Your videos are always the best, since there's not much people out there doing comparison like this. I'm currently developing photogrammetry pipeline for our studio also and also try a comparison just like you, but can't focus on much more details like what you've done. Again, thanks a lot for keep making photogrammetry content. Cheers !

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thank you very much :)

[@john3d376]

Very informative video sir Grzegorz! As someone who's just starting in the professional 3D industry, I feel like I stumbled upon a gold mine! This is only just the second vid I've watched from you and I couldn't help but smile and at the same time, relate and be amazed at your deep observations. One of the things I really appreciate is how you explain each software's strengths and weaknesses not just by the way they are built, but the way they function and perform according to the hardware (gpu, cpu and memory). Also, the one from toolbag is sooo true! I notice that when baking, it crashes (high poly of 1 mil polys or more + my 2gb discrete mobile gpu vram) compared to others. So far, I only have experience baking in Xnormals and Substance Painter though but I would definitely give Designer and Knald a try. More tools, the better!

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thank you for such kind response :). I really appreciate that. It means a lot to know that effort spent wasnt wasted :). Thanks for watching mate and good luck with your professional 3D journey! Cheers!!!!

[@tylerheaton9452]

Thanks for the detailed review and comparison. Like so many tools, it all depends on the use case. You have given us many points to consider when looking at a baking application.

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thanks, yeah, I totally agree. Each baker has pros and cons, its a year since I released this video and Knald still doesnt get promised update therfore is useless if you need to carry a color information with the texture. Substance Designer baker does very well and got a few updates but still doesnt have PLY support while Marmoset Toolbag still isnt well optimised and struggles with high poly meshes even if they should fit into available memory. XNormal didnt change but still is very good and reliable and is the only baker which can do the job with very high poly meshes. Honestly.. if I can pick the only one baker today, I would probably pick XNormal. But for some atlas job I presented in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a6OlaKOnhb2riac , Marmoset Toolbag is the only option due to its preview functionality, but somehow I still consider Substance Designer baker as my favourite one. Will see for how long as each software chnages and I already had a few cases when I dropped Substance Designer baker and used XNormal instead :/. So imo its good to knwo what each has to offer, where they struggle so we can pick the one which works for us the best but also fits our budget.

[@krzysiekchylinski6829]

Fajny przegląd :) Ciekawie się oglądało

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Dzieki wielkie :)

[@MadnessBJJ]

This was fantastic and very informative. Been using all but knald for a little while now and seeing things I'd not seen before. I like Marmoset for the ability to show demo bakes and it adjusts projected results when you edit the cage accordingly.

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thanks Michael, yeah. These are just the tools to do the job, I believe we need to know them all even just to know which one can be used when the current one doesnt work. The Marmoset Toolbag one struggles with very heavy geometry as is limited to the available video memory which is fine when when you work with meshes until they fit. KNALD has very similar cage setting and deals with heavier meshes while still being fast. When the msh is really heavy XNormal comes in handy.. its slow compared but still very reliable.

[@MadnessBJJ]

@@GrzegorzBaranArt it is fantastic to hear things like this as I’ve never had to think of baking this way before. I’ll definitely have to look into Knald I think as looks like it has the potential to be the better of the 4. Although, it looks like each software has its own benefits on certain maps.

[@ts3dprints732]

That was the most indebth review I have ever seen. Just getting into photogrammetry and this was extremely helpful. I'll give xNormal a try and go from there. Thank you for the help.

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Glad to hear that. Bear in mind that every tool changes over time driven by its competition. This is why it is good to know other options. xNormal is a great and in my opinion the most reliable choice so far. Even if slow, it does the job and I still use it from time to time, especially when other bakers struggle with heavy geometry. Currently (Dec2021 I use Substance Designer baker on a daily basis but since it struggles sometimes with heavy geometry I use xNormal as the second option). I dont use KNALD as somehow after year it still didnt receive promissed update and without option to transfer texture with a bitmap.. its non-competitive. Since Marmoset Toolbag baker uses only Video Memory, it is dependent on Graphics Card RAM and in 99% of my cases where my meshes are pretty heavy it is totally useless. So in my opinion if you have time for baking and dont have super modern GPU with a lot of video RAM on board so it can utilise GPU baking.. the XNormal is still a very solid and reliable option and I strongly recommend it. Cheers!

[@pixAmant]

Danke!

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Cheers!

[@TheSatzy6699]

Super 👌🏻

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Cheers!

[@klovver]

Great test. Dzięki Grzegorz.

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thanks, anytime Piotr :)

[@DannyArtNL]

Amazing video! Thanks for the in-depth comparisons!

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thank you Dan, apreciated :). And big tanks for watching

[@Barnyz]

Excellent baking video! I learned alot, thanks for sharing!

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thank you veeeeery much Barny :). Big thanks for watching

[@___Zack___]

@Barnyz What is "alot"? I use Xnormal but can't find whatever you're referring to

[@shubhamartist2001]

I learn lots of things tnx bro . . . .!!!

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Glad to hear that :) Cheers!

[@RokasKontvainis]

Very good video, Thanks for it.

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thanks Rokas :). Appreciated

[@skypro-aerials]

Great explanation of the process and how to avoid mistakes! I learned a lot from your videos. :)

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Good to hear that Timothy :). And big thanks for watching

[@woolenwoods665]

such an informative tutorial! thanks for your effort and i sincerely wish you a happy new year!

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thank you and all the best in 2022

[@marko8095]

Very cool, tnx!

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

No probs, anytime :)

[@starscream007]

Quite interesting video. Even though I’m not in touch with anything past modeling and basic texturing(applying existing textures), I found your explanation of how normal map bakers work entertaining and helpful.

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thank you veeery much :). It means a lot

[@cecile.muller]

I'd be curious to see this updated for Marmoset Toolbag 4 once it's officially released: afaik the beta version already bakes a lot faster than 3

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

I might do another pass when bakers change enough as they all are in constant change. The main idea for this video was to present bakers to those who didnt see them in action before like myself. I was searching for a video like this one and wasnt able to find one. So far as I know KNALD is going to get support for larger files, Toolbag 4 might be quicker but also the Substance Designer is getting speed boost as well as a PLY support but but so far its not enough to make entire video about it :). Also XNormal might get the 4th release with full CUDA but I would risk to say that it might be a matter of years for it.

[@darkobakula5190]

If CUDA baker is still not working there are alternatives in Xnormal. It is possible to speed up AO bakes by using low ray sample count such as 64 and enabling jitter. It will give a slightly noisy effect which I found acceptable for my bakes. Also, Xnormal has some useful tools for example, it's possible to use a height map to calculate a decent looking occlusion map.

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Yes, it doesnt and yes, its possible to speed baking by lowering baking parameters. Yes, it is also possible to use normal or height map to generate ambient occlusion map, but real, ray based bake will be always better.

[@thebilgekhan]

Very useful. Thanks for comparing. I was very frustrated with xNormal's AO process aswell. Can you make a video comparison for ZBrush, Painter, Topogun and Marmoset 4 aswell ?

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thanks, sounds like a good idea but even if the the baker in Painter uses the same technology as the one used in Substance Designer but is a bit late when it comes to updating the bakers library, so the current bakers in SD are more recent than the one currently in SP, they don’t have the latest optimizations on the padding for instance. The file loading system is not the same and the files are not saved on disc until you save the Painter project, so measuring the exact performances will probably be a bit difficult. The main difference between the 2nd is the UI and the exposed bakers (no height map for instance), Painter does not expose all bakers but only the one who have a direct usage in Painter. Substance guys have plans to change that in the future but I was told that there is no any time estimation for this. So I guess.. wont cover Painter baker if I proceed with a different comparison. Might cover Designer baker again instead since recent update for Substance Designer.. the next one after I used for this video.. is even faster as the baker was improved. Substance guys are also planning to introduce support for the PLY file format.. this is why I mentioned that all tools are in constant change. Something what doesnt work today very well .. might be the best pick tomorrow. So I think Designer, Topogun and Marmoset4 .. and maybe a few more to make comparison even more interesting might work but I wouldnt cover Painter and not sure about the ZBrush baker as I wouldnt consider ZBrush as a baker really. As far as I remember it is very limited and is based on subdivision levels of the same subtool. Regarding the Toolbag 4.. I think its worth to wait for a patch for it. Imo this tool wasnt ready to be shipped and was rushed and personally.. isnt finished yet. And finally.. would be cool to present what new KNALD release finally brings with its new update.. so also worth to wait a bit. So .. definitelly will add it to the my video queue :) but wouldnt expect it very soon. Hope that makes sense :). Cheers!

[@thebilgekhan]

@@GrzegorzBaranArt Thanks for this very detailed explanation, you have described the issues very well. I have patience of course for the upcoming videos :) Didn't know Designer's system was better than the one in Painter. Very useful infos. Sad about Marmoset 4, I'm seeing some results in Facebook group but many people have issues with it as I can see, maybe due to it's Beta period. I guess you will be right about it anyway. Only TopoGun left useful then. Thanks a lot, keep up the good work. Best regards.

[@bearlopez8843]

You are a God, thank you very much...

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

:) You are welcome

[@universaltoons]

Is there a big difference between bakes done by Designer and Painter? I'd assume they're using identical technology, but I haven't tested

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

I think I shared some details somewhere in comments there. Afaik while the algorithm has the same base, the baker iitself differed in detail and its implementation... at least it used to when I checked a while ago. I dont know actual state of it for today but I belive that it is still the case to some degree.

[@LORENZOCOLALONGO]

Great !

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Cheers! :)

[@feilu535]

Professional

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Cheers!!!

[@darty367]

Thk for the video. So I am assuming that the problem with normal map from high poly model with marmoset in your previous comparison is finally resolved ?

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Yeah, I decided to fix both editing mistakes I made, rerender entire video and re-upload it again as a new one.. if this is what you are asking for.

[@darty367]

@@GrzegorzBaranArt not exactly, I don't remember where I have seen this, but you had already made a baker comparison between marmoset and designer a while ago, and you concluded that marmoset was not recommended for high poly because the normal map displayed some glitches

[@darty367]

@@GrzegorzBaranArt here by example : www.artstation.com/artwork/LK38l

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

@@darty367 Oh.. I got it now.. as far as I remember it wasnt a separate video just a conlusion during the photogrammetry process. Yeah, I had some glitches in MT as it used to struggle to deal with very heavy geometry somehow. I also had glitches with Substance Designer with meshes over 100mln polys but SD was improved recently and now its way better. This is why I still use it and recommend to anyone :). The recent update for Substance Designer baker .. the one after this version from the current comparison is even faster to what it was 2 months ago :)

[@Lazniak]

Grzegorz did you tried capturingreality software to create a photogramethry models? Could you share us some conclusions if yes?

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Hey, it is a good idea. I was planning to do this next year but I am still not sure if what form. Still wandering should I make a similar comparison to this video or should I make a separate one just to cover Reality Capture and its workflow details. I ws waiting for the 1.7 Metashape release and new 3DF Zephyr release as updates for these tools are going to change a lot. Regarding the conclusions.. RC its a great software with currently delivers the best quality compared to the competition but.. its definitelly the most expensive one. It has some pros and cons, especially when compared to the competition.

[@RokasKontvainis]

Grzegorz, do You have an alternative to Zbrush when creating low poly projection meshes. How would You do it in 3dsMax/Blender?

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

I would do it exactly the same way. The only important thing is the alignment.. planning to make a video about that in a future. I use ZBrush since its the best tool to deal with very heavy geometry. Btw. you dont have to create a plane, you can also build it manually using retopology tools. I use the plane since it guarantee the best usage of UV space.

[@RokasKontvainis]

@@GrzegorzBaranArt Thanks for reply. I am 3ds max user and I am not sure how to PROJECT MESH so it flows in most optimal way as You do that in zbrush. Generally I import Medium Density mesh(decimated in meteshape) for retopology and use TopoLogiK to do manual retopo. But my retopo is mostly sitting on top of mediumpoly mesh. Not half way in between low and high points. I hope I explained clear where my issue is.

[@alexrobert3D]

@@RokasKontvainis You can use the Conform Tool in 3DsMax to match a lower res plane onto the surface of your HighPoly Mesh like Greg does in Zbrush.

[@alexrobert3D]

@@GrzegorzBaranArt If you only have acces to 3DsMax and manage to import a 2-4million poly mesh, you can Freeze it to work smoothly in the viewport as usual

[@RokasKontvainis]

@@alexrobert3D It does work pretty well. Thanks for the tip!

Hi Grzegorz! You often mention in your videos that you capture an area of 180cm by 180cm. Is there a reason for this specific size or is this just personal preference? Why not capture 2m by 2m?

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

I have found that 180 by 180cm used as 2m by 2m looks way better when applied but still believeable. So yeah, its my personal preference and a kind of trick :)

@@GrzegorzBaranArt I see, thank you!

[@dagkjetsa8486]

Hello again. In either this video or one of the others you have uploaded you mentioned that the fbx file format is problematic for baking at a resolution higher than 67 million polygons, correct? If so, can you please explain this a bit more in detail? And what format would you use if the high res mesh has a higher count than this? In my case the original mesh is 67 million polygons, but all quads. This takes forever for the baker to load because it has to triangulate the mesh itself. So I have to triangulate the mesh before the bake, and this raises the polycount to about 134 mill... hence my question.

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

As I described in my ebook (page 105), an FBX SDK during the file reading is storing the color array information using int data type. So the max number of vertices the color information can be read via FBX SDK is 33 554 432 (2^30 due to the double capacity). Baking application might be also using FBX SDK for the reading the files from FBX format, so it is facing this overflow issue even if the colors are present in the file. So if you plan to carry color information using vertices you are limited to 67mln dense mesh and vertices above this number are going to be seen as black on albedo. But if you decide to use the bitmap to carry color information instead you have no such limit and you can use as heavy geometry your computer and baker can handle :). Thats it. Hope that makes sense :D

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

So I suggest to use a bitmap (texture) to cary color infomration instead of vertices.. personally this is what I do all the time now. I still use vertices as they give a beter context and help in visual orientation when creating a lowpoly model

[@alexrobert3D]

Great Video Greg :D I wish no one ever has to wait 2hrs for an AO map and just generates it inside Substance Designer from a 15sec HeightMap !

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Yeah, thats the option to consider too :) but I guess the quality from the normal based wont be the same :)

[@Cathodeus]

@@GrzegorzBaranArt Not a guess. That is a fact ! Normal map do have really poor Z informations. So doing it from 3D is best, at least if user do have the 3D datas. (When we only have the nmap, well ... )

[@dagkjetsa8486]

Another short question: is there any difference between baking textures in substance designer and substance painter?

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Hey, I hope you dont mind me to paste the answer to similar question from comments below: '...Painter uses the same technology as the one used in Substance Designer but is a bit late when it comes to updating the bakers library, so the current bakers in SD are more recent than the one currently in SP, they don’t have the latest optimizations on the padding for instance. The file loading system is not the same and the files are not saved on disc until you save the Painter project, so measuring the exact performances will probably be a bit difficult. The main difference between the 2nd is the UI and the exposed bakers (no height map for instance), Painter does not expose all bakers but only the one who have a direct usage in Painter. Substance guys have plans to change that in the future but I was told that there is no any time estimation for this....' Hope that helps :). Cheers!

[@dagkjetsa8486]

@@GrzegorzBaranArt Thanks! Will try out SD then :)

[@rileylane8629]

Hi Grzegorz. How does the Substance Painter baker compare to these for baking photogrammetry?

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Sorry but I didnt use Painter Baker for this purpose as I thought it never was designed for this. I gave it a try long time ago and I failed but... Painter has changed since this time a lot so might be worth to give it another try. My guess is that since its Substance it probably use exactly the same baking engine as Designer does. MIght give it a try in a future as you made me curious now :)

[@Cathodeus]

@@GrzegorzBaranArt Painter cannot bake heightmap so ...

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Yeah, ​ @Massimo Bongiorno is correct The baker in Painter uses the same technology but is a bit late when it comes to updating the bakers library, so the current bakers in SD are more recent than the one currently in SP, they don’t have the latest optimizations on the padding for instance. The file loading system is not the same and the files are not saved on disc until you save the Painter project, so measuring the exact performances will probably be a bit difficult. The main difference between the 2nd is the UI and the exposed bakers (no height map for instance), Painter does not expose all bakers but only the one who have a direct usage in Painter. Substance guys have plans to change that in the future but I was told that there is no any time estimation for this. So I guess.. wont cover Painter baker if I proceed with a different comparison. Also to be honest, recent update for Substance Designer.. the next one after I used for this video.. is even faster as the baker was improved. This is why I mentioned that all tools are in constant change. Something what doesnt work today very well .. might be the best pick tomorrow :) Hope that helps, Cheers!

[@persscans]

For me xnormal is the best so far. You can reduce the rays in the ambient occlusion setting to reduce the bake time by a LOT. Substance designer is also great but crashes when the polycount is to high.

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

2 years after this video was release I have to agree. Especially that XNormal is free for everyone. As you mentioned, Substance baker is great but it struggles with very heavy meshes. After these 2 years KNALD still didnt get promissed update. And Marmoset Toolbag.. same as before is limited to VRAM only and its efficiency in geometry handling is very questionable.

[@dagkjetsa8486]

Yet one more question: In substance designer, are there any good ways to increase the quality of the bake? I did a comparison between baking a color texture in houdini and in substance designer, and substance designer delivers marginally better results. However, it takes forever to load the meshes when baking (low-res is approx. 6.5 mill polys, high-res is 67 mill), which goes much quicker in houdini. And both results are quite "smeary" looking. So again is there a way to increase the projection quality, and is there a way to get the program to load meshes faster? Thanks

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Of course there are :). There are additional options to set in 'Bakers Parameters' tab. If you take a closer look at 6:37 (kzbin.info/www/bejne/pJDZhKV9gbFlf9k) you can see them when I add baker types to be baked. You can also increase AA or change the bucket size . I also suggest to turn GPU acceleration ON as it signifficantly speeds up the process. Regarding the albedo.. in this case most depends on the initial data quality, there usually no any processing on this map.. its just simple projection from 3D to 2D. All bakers should give very similar result regarding the Albedo.

[@dagkjetsa8486]

@@GrzegorzBaranArt Thanks. The parameters you are referring to is only available for passes such as occlusion. I am primarily looking to bake a whole bunch of color maps and masks, and the projections seem to use some sort of average normal and then filtering that appear to blur the result. I suppose casting more rays is not available for the color maps. Too bad. I also wish that they would have more filtering options. A sharpening filter applied in log color space would have been ideal. I also found out that the meshes ought to be triangulated before the projection. I hope that this will speed up the mesh loading process a bit. Thanks for the reply btw.! Your tutorials are really helpful

[@Cathodeus]

Hey, thanks for the video ! I’m happy to see that we have the same analysis. -When I need speed without albedo I use Knald -When I need a complete set of map I use designer. -I like Toolbag normal painting feature (for hard surface). You should dive in 3DSMAX new “Bake to texture tool”. It is not perfect in 2021 but Autodesk is improving it fast. That is promising because it allow all 3D format, can bake All Arnold Pass, and Even Custom one ☝️, Arnold is becoming better GPU wise too ! So if you wanna try BTT join the Beta. You could have influence on the dev.

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thanks Massimo :)

[@KiwiHawk-downunder-nz]

Sorry to be a pain I know it's not your software BUT I loaded an image into Knald and some how fipped it unside down I can find how to re set it even after uninstalling and re installing it still the wrong way up, there no posts on plycount from 2019-2020 Dev;s gone silent. I wondering if you maybe know how to fix this

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Hey, no worries :) Unfortunately I dont have enough details to help but I might try to guess. In ym opinion it simply looks like UVs on your model might be flipped. It has never happened to me regarding the baking software but many times when I was exporting things from different apps. Usually when you export things you have export options, different apps exports things with different default settings. For example ZBrush always flips UV 180 degree. Regarding the KNALD baker. I also thought that something could happend to the dev team since you were not the only one who didnt hear anything from them, but recently they have contacted me saying that everything is fine and they still work on the KNALD update. So at least they confirmed that they didnt abandon their software. Have no clue tho when the update comes, feels like it takes a lot of time, especially that I tested KNALD beta 1.5 year ago :/

[@KiwiHawk-downunder-nz]

@@GrzegorzBaranArt Thank you, it only a height map image the flips upside down as I load it from the file opne menu, I'll try email them a see if I get a reply, shame thy don't show some sign of life

[@clementkirton]

Also marmoset also now has gpu raytraching making it a lot faster same as substance painter/ designer

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Hey Clement, I totally agree regarding the speed, but Marmoset Toolbag 4 is still limited to the Video RAM memory while in Substance Designer you have a choice. It means that MT even if is super guick it cant handle heavy meshes with heavy (usually 16k) textures if your graphics card has not enough memory while competitive software can utilise standard RAM for it. So I would say that for for medium sized highpoly models MT is ok but if you plan to go with heavy models it wont do the job. FOrm my perspective its the case as when I scan models I usually try to get as much as I can from them and while in SD I can simply switch from GPU to CPU while unfortunatelly I cant do the same in MT. In result if I want to use MT as a baker I need to decimate the highpoly model, reuvmap it and rebuild textures is downscaled resolution for baking. Of course MT has some super cool features other bakers done but its not the speed .. planning to cover one pretty soon in my incoming video.. basically I will do something other bakers cant even dream about but was waiting for MT to introduce pivot point controler .. but even tho I would say that for standard, heavy baking Substance Designer offers the best baker.. the only big downside is that they still dont support PLY.. but as far as I know they are planning to add it soon.

[@clementkirton]

@@GrzegorzBaranArt I agree that's its good to have the choice but I also think that if your baking things that fill up grater then 8GB of vram your starting to do it more professionally for most game model ready textures or models you never need to go above 4k texture and if your doing things at 16k that's not a average thing so you should then be looking at something like the 3090 or the titan or qaudro cards that have 24+ vram me personally with a 3080 have never ran out of vram in a bake

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

@@clementkirton not exactly :). I usually use 16k textures to transfer albedo information from the photogrammetry based geometry. It doesnt mean that the baked texture is going to be 16k but that the baker has enough information from the source to bake from it. Especially that auto-unwraping done by photogrammetry software isnt very efficient and a lot of space is wasted which decreases effective space used to transfer the data. There are areas where MT baker shines but GPU baking limited by the VRAM is a very big downside and woul dbe great to have an option to switch to CPU, especially that MT isnt very cheap piece of software compared to what it offers. Dont get me wrong, Marmoset Toolbag baker can be very useful but in my experience there were cases when I hit the wall limited by the amount of VRAM. It also seems to be way more user friendly when deailing with props, but it lacks working distance autodetection which competetive software offers. I would say that if I can pick just one package.. I would pick Substance Designer in the first place. Imo Marmoset Toolbag is way to expensive to what it offers so far, I really hope they wont ask to pay for it next year calling it MT5 as I will probably drop it and wont spend more money on it anymore. Last but not least, I dont use any fancy Graphics card, I use GF1080 with 11GB of RAM and I wont spend money to get GPU with 24GB of RAM just to be able to bake slightly more complex data.. especially that 24GB isnt as much as it sounds. I prefer to upgrade my PC to 64GB of RAM.. what I did already.. or even 128GB if 64 wont work for me anymore.. and have an option in baker to use resources I have. I like Marmoset Toolbag as a rendering system.. and I appreciate Tollbags baker as it offers something cometition doesnt.. but imo it needs a lot of work to be done to become the first and obvious choice :D

[@maituantai9321]

Do you think xnormal AO and normal maps are good enough, compared to painter? I like painter but sometimes its laggy and quite costly.

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

XNormal as a baker is fine and provides very high quality results. It is just slow when it comes to these maps, thats it.

[@maituantai9321]

@@GrzegorzBaranArt much appreciated it Grzegorz!

[@Paulruk]

Great video Grzegorz, i`ve used all these for many years and crazy bump before that. But if i`m in a rush knald is a good option for me, even if its just quickly grabbing some height information from a colour texture. btw , its pronounced Nald, silent K like Know. Sorry to pick up on that, i understand you dont have English as a first language. Keep up the good work!

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Thanks a lot, and thanks for the tip with KNALD pronunciation, I did some researching trying to find out how to pronunce it correctly and found that ppl pronunce it in both ways.. what I found that it comes from Danish? and if it does it has 'K' so I decided that it will be safer to say 'K' even if it sounds weird? Btw. do you know what KNALD really means as a name for this app.. is this even a word in this context? In danish it means 'bang' or 'very skilled' as adjective :D

[@Paulruk]

@@GrzegorzBaranArt ha yes I heard it's a bit of a rude word in Danish. I just remember watching videos years ago and it was an English guy who pronounced it Nald. So I've been going around ever since saying that. maybe we are all wrong lol

[@motorsep]

Isn't Knald pretty much dead? They haven't updated the software since 2016, it's impossible to get ahold of anyone via email or their social media channels either. Does anyone know when that update, Grzegorz was talking about in the video, is coming ?

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

I have contacted them before I made this video and received access to the beta of the new update after 1.2.1. So based on that I can say that KNALD isnt dead at all. Imo the beta of the new update was ready to be released when I tested it, have no idea why it isnt yet tho. Unfortunately I didnt get any response when I asked 'when are we going to get update' but I had a feeling that it is going to be very soon. I pinged them again, will update this comment here after I get response

[@HectorCenteno]

@@GrzegorzBaranArt I'm just curious, it's mid 2022 and Knald is still at version 1.2.1. I was considering buying it (also to process photogrammetry) and came across your video (thanks! it's great). I wonder if it's actually not being developed anymore. Have you heard from them?

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

@@HectorCenteno I had the same question a while ago and I managed to contact them as I thought that maybe they were affected by pademic or something. They responded and told me that everything is fine and they work on the update as planned but nothing has changed since this time. When I was working on this video 2 years ago the 'beta' of new release was basically ready to be shipped. I dont get it why it is not released yet. New features were very promissing but without them, as I said in this video I wouldn't recommend KNALD to anyone. Without them KNALD is also useless for me. If you dont have Substance Designer or when you work with really heavy meshes I would simply recommend an old, good XNormal instead.

[@aliakdogan9426]

thanks for this dtailed video , i appreciate your effort in doing this.

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

I am really glad to know you found it useful, cheers!

[@mazi2043]

How about Mightybake?

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Initially I wanted the video to be short so I decided to limit the amount of bakers to key ones only and ended up with just 4 of them. But I agree that it might be worth to cover a few more like the Handplane, Topogun, Painter or Mightybake you mentioned. If there is more people interested in this I might consider another video to cover them all. Or.. make a video per baker if it would be more beneficial.. but I guess pure comparison makes more sense :)

[@dagkjetsa8486]

Short question : which of these bakers support baking to udims if any?

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Hey, if you mean baking different UV sets, Substance Designer baker has the option to bake different UV sets. Marmoset Toolbag also have this option and its called 'Multiple Texture Sets'. Its also based on different UV sets. As far as I know Xnormal can only output a single bake at a time. I dont know about the Knald, cant see any option to output multiple UV sets there. Hope that helps.

[@dagkjetsa8486]

@@GrzegorzBaranArt thanks for the reply. Not quite sure what you mean by uv sets. Do you mean different sets of uvs that all exist in the 0-1 space or do they conform to the udim workflow that specifies the tiles by number (1001-1xxx) and offsets (10 in u and x in v)?

[@khov]

can you tell me wich baker give the best results in 2023 ?

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

Hey, it depends on the subject you wanna cover. For super heavy meshes XNormal is stil lthe only way but its the slowest one. For heavy meshes - up to 150mln Substance Designer.does the best job and I use it pn a daily basis. When dealign with heavy meshes I simply decimate them to about 100mln poly as working with super heavy meshes makes sense only when you expect really high resolution detail on your textures.. usually about 32-32k textures. So to answer your question: I would recommend Substance Designer (paid) or XNormal (free). I would totally drop KNALD, its not worth the price without the update they promised 2 years ago. Marmoset Toolbag is.. ok-ish for medium and light meshes, but I am not a big fan of it. It struggles with memory management and imo baker would benefit from actual UI improvement. Personaly I dont use it.

[@王金童-y3i]

The best Baketexture Software is Houdini

[@GrzegorzBaranArt]

I havent used Houdini for baking but I would be careful saying that its the best one. XNormal is free and havent seen anything it cant handle. The only issue with XNormal is the user interface and lack of GPU support. Houdini as I see is almost $269 in its cheapest variant and its just 1 year rental. You get full perpetual version of Substance Designer in this price level. Also as far as I remember Houdinis UI also wasnt very user friendly. Would be nice to test it then and compare with other apps and update this video tho as so many things has changed since it was released. Cheers!

[@jrr4eg]

too simple model, normal maps got many bugs on real 3d models

[@clementkirton]

And since marmoset is the only one that I know of that has skew adjustment it makes it a no brainer