

What is Baking? Am I Doing Something Wrong?
What exactly is baking? Am I doing something wrong?
As you can see in the first image, the model in the back is my original low-poly model, while the one in front has Smooth applied to it. Honestly, once I apply Smooth to each object, I feel like the model looks significantly higher quality, and I really like the way it looks.
The original low-poly models, on the other hand, feel too sharp and artificial to me because of their hard edges. So I’m trying to solve this by applying bevel and smoothing while staying as close as possible to the original shape, and then using that as part of my baking workflow.
However, no matter what I try, even with different UV layouts and different ways of cutting the UVs, I keep getting shading artifacts when I bake. I always end up with visible lines and unwanted shading around the edges.
Is baking actually intended to solve this kind of problem? Or have I misunderstood what baking is supposed to be used for?