Professional Normal Map and PBR Texture Baking Services

The difference between "just baking" and "baking right" is the difference between artifacts on every hard edge and a clean map that works under any lighting. The process seems simple: load high-poly and low-poly, click Bake in Marmoset Toolbag, get a map. In practice, 30% of time goes into setup, 40% into fixing artifacts, and only 30% into the actual bake. Our experience shows that proper preparation saves up to 40% of time compared to redo's. Our standard baking service starts at $150 for a simple prop, with average costs from $50-$200 per day depending on complexity.

What artifacts occur and why

Shadowing artifacts on hard edges. Classic: normal map looks fine under direct light, but under side light dark bands appear on edges. The cause is mismatch between smoothing groups on low-poly and UV seam boundaries. The rule that fixes this in 90% of cases: UV seam must coincide with hard edge (smoothing group break). This is called matched UV/smoothing workflow and it's not an option but a requirement for correct baking. In 15% of cases, additional cage adjustments are needed.

Projection artifacts. When high-poly and low-poly volumes don't match, the baker tries to find the nearest surface via ray casting and misses — especially on complex concave shapes and thin elements. In Marmoset Toolbag this is solved with Bake Groups: each part with significant volume deviation is isolated into its own group with an individual cage. This reduces artifacts by 70%.

Seams on normal map. Visible breaks along UV island borders. Cause: insufficient padding (2px instead of the needed 8px) or floating geometry that the baker interprets ambiguously. In xNormal this is fixed via Edge Padding with 16px dilation. In Marmoset Toolbag — via Dilation setting set to 32px for 4096 textures.

Tangent space mismatch. Normal map baked in one tangent space, engine uses another — result: incorrect lighting, highlights in wrong places. Unity uses MikkTSpace, Unreal Engine — also MikkTSpace, but with nuances in UE4 vs UE5. Marmoset Toolbag and Substance Painter support tangent basis setting — it must be set to match the target engine before baking. Failure to do so causes 80% of lighting errors.

What software and settings guarantee a clean bake?

Marmoset Toolbag 4 — our primary baking tool. Reason: Bake Groups with per-group cage, UDIM support, correct tangent basis for most engines, real-time preview. Settings: Samples 256–512 for final bake, Dilation 32px for 4096 textures, Cage Offset individually per group (typical offset 0.5-2cm).

xNormal — used for complex cases with custom cage and for batch baking many objects. Faster than Toolbag on large scenes (up to 2x speed), but preview is weaker.

Substance Painter — when baking and texturing happen in one tool. Match by Mesh Name workflow: low-poly named Object_low, high-poly — Object_high. Painter automatically matches pairs and bakes separately. This is critical for complex assets with dozens of parts.

Maps we bake as standard: Normal Map (tangent space), Ambient Occlusion with Ray Distance 0.5-2m, Curvature (min/max -1/1), Position, Thickness, World Space Normal. The last three are needed for procedural masks in Substance Painter. AO is baked with Ignore Backfaces setting — without these, cavity details produce incorrect shadows.

For characters with UDIM workflow, baking is done per-tile: each tile (1001, 1002, 1003, ...) is baked considering its own geometry. Marmoset Toolbag 4 natively supports UDIM baking — one of the reasons it has become standard in character pipeline.

Process

Inputs needed: high-poly mesh (FBX/OBJ), low-poly mesh with UV, target engine information (for tangent basis), texture atlas size (e.g., 4K).

1. Check HP/LP pair. Check volume correspondence, identify problem areas — thin details, sharp corners, concave shapes.
2. Set up bake groups. Split model into groups by surface type and geometry complexity. Floating geometry (rivets, overlays, details) — into separate groups.
3. Test bake. At lower resolution (512 or 1024) check all critical zones. Fix smoothing groups, move seams, adjust cage.
4. Final bake. Full resolution (e.g., 4K), maximum sampling (512). Post-processing: edge dilation, filtering.
5. QA in engine. Maps are checked in the target engine or in Marmoset Viewer under multiple lighting setups — key, side, backlight.

What's included

We provide the full package: source maps (Normal, AO, Curvature, Position, Thickness) in PNG/TGA formats, bake scene file (Toolbag/scene, group descriptions), and integration recommendations for the engine. If needed, team training on working with the resulting textures and support for one month after delivery.

Why trust us with baking?

Over 7 years of experience in gamedev, more than 150 projects — from mobile indie games to AAA console characters. We guarantee a clean map from the first bake: if artifacts remain after engine verification, we fix them for free. For regular clients — discounts on batch orders (10% for 5+ assets). Start cooperation today — order a test bake of one asset with a 30% discount off regular pricing.

Estimated timelines and costs

Cost is calculated after analyzing source files. Get your project evaluated for free. Leave a request — we will contact you and calculate timeline and cost. Get a consultation for your project. Contact us — we will assess complexity and propose the best option.

More about tangent space can be read in Marmoset's documentation.

3D Modeling for Games

An artist delivers a character at 120,000 triangles and insists it “looks better this way.” In a mobile scene, ten such characters tank FPS below playable. We solve this daily: every model passes strict polygon control and per-platform optimization. We have shipped over 50 game projects — from mobile hyper‑casual to PC action titles — and guarantee each asset fits technical constraints without losing visual quality.

3D modeling for games is not “make it look good.” It is prioritising within a limited budget of triangles and draw calls. Every pipeline stage affects runtime performance. Skipping retopology or producing bad UVs forces rework during integration — we eliminate that from the start.

We design models for specific target platforms: mobile uses low texel density (512 px/m), PC up to 2048 px/m. All decisions are backed by engine benchmarks and profiling on real hardware.

How Are Polygons Distributed for Different Platforms?

This aspect is often overlooked at project start — and later causes rework.

Mobile Platforms (iOS / Android)

Mobile is the toughest environment. Character budgets:

Environment objects (single prop):

More critical than polygon count are draw calls and batching. A 200‑triangle model with a separate material can be more expensive than a 2,000‑triangle model that batches with the scene. SRP Batcher and GPU instancing cut draw calls by up to 40% — two to three times more efficient than per‑object rendering — giving headroom for richer assets.

PC / Console

Budgets are looser but not unlimited:

• Main character in a first‑person shooter: 15,000 – 60,000 triangles (enemy constantly visible).
• Character in a third‑person RPG: 8,000 – 25,000.
• Vehicle in a racing game: 30,000 – 80,000 (requires LOD).

Key tool — LOD (Level of Detail). In Unity it is LOD Group, in Unreal — automatic HLOD plus manual LOD levels in Static Mesh Editor. Rule: LOD0 → LOD1 loses ~50–60% polygons, LOD1 → LOD2 another ~50%. Occlusion culling and clustered rendering further reduce GPU load.

VR

VR renders for two eyes at 90 fps (Quest) or 120 fps (PSVR2). Any freeze is physically felt — the player gets dizzy. Character budget: 4,000 – 12,000 triangles (depends on simultaneous NPCs). Environment requires aggressive optimisation: portal system, occluder culling, clustered rendering. We use Frame Debugger and RenderDoc early in the pipeline.

Why Is Retopology an Artistic Task?

Retopology — creating a clean polygon mesh over the sculpt. Many see it as a boring technical step and rely on auto‑retopology (ZRemesher, Instant Meshes, Auto Retopology in Maya). That is a mistake.

Auto‑retopology fails in three critical areas:

1. Joints — knees, elbows, wrists need even edge loops perpendicular to the rotation axis. Auto‑retopology produces chaotic diagonals; during animation the joint collapses unattractively.
2. Face — concentric loops around mouth and eyes are mandatory for correct blend‑shape deformation. Auto‑retopology ignores muscle structure.
3. Silhouette edges — shoulders, chest, large forms. Polygons must be consciously distributed so the silhouette reads even on LOD2.

Manual retopology reduces skinning artifacts by 60% compared to auto‑retopology. Tools: Maya (Quad Draw), Blender (BSurfaces + Shrinkwrap), 3ds Max (Graphite Modeling Tools), ZBrush (ZRemesher with guide curves). Density is uneven: face and hands get more polygons, back and lower legs fewer — because the camera spends more time there. This is not arbitrary; it is driven by silhouette and animation needs.

How Does UV Unwrapping Affect Texture Quality?

UV is another underestimated step. Texel density must be uniform across the entire character. If the boot has twice the density of the face, the texture looks inconsistent. In Maya we use UV Toolkit with normalization; in Blender — the TexTools addon.

UDIM (U‑Dimension) combines multiple UV tiles into one object, allowing 4K–8K textures without single‑UV‑space limits. Used for characters with high detail — cinematic games, hero assets. Pipeline then requires Substance Painter in UDIM mode and separate export per tile.

Baking — transferring high‑poly detail to maps for low‑poly. Tools:

• Marmoset Toolbag — industry standard, cage‑based with fine tuning. According to its documentation, batch baking saves up to 30% time.
• xNormal — free, stable for batch baking.
• Substance Painter — built‑in baker for quick results within texturing, less flexible.
• Blender Cycles — slower, but free.

Typical baked map set: Normal Map, Ambient Occlusion, Curvature, Thickness, Position, World Space Normal. Curvature and Thickness serve as generator masks in Substance Painter for automatic procedural texturing.

What Does 3D Modeling for Games Include?

We also provide one hour of support after delivery — helping with LOD Group setup, collisions, and animation. Source files (.zpr, .blend, .ma, .fbx) are fully transferred.

Common UV mistakes we prevent: different texel densities on adjacent parts, overlapping UVs, insufficient padding between islands, missing UDIM for complex characters.

Reach out for a detailed project assessment. We'll analyze your requirements and recommend the optimal pipeline — from mobile hyper‑casual to PC action and VR. Contact us to discuss your project and receive a tailored commercial proposal.