Guide: How to Bake Normal Maps

Environment artist Leonardo Iezzi shared a list of recommendations, which will help you to make better textures.

I’ve been spending a lot of time testing how to bake normal maps from high poly meshes. I think a lot of 3d other involved in the game industry share this passion/chore. I got to a point where I’m pretty much confident with it. But, today, as the industry is growing, beginners usually start directly to learn super powerful software, not taking care of the basics. And the basics are important.

So I made this little tut/diagram, in order to help people to achieve even better results and make the video game industry a better place to work. Big thanks goes to all my colleagues because it’s also thanks to them that you know what you know.

Now you know how to bake a normal map! So do it properly from now on.

Leonardo Iezzi, Environment artist