Properly mirroring geometry for baking/rigging

This is a quick demonstration of the simplest procedure to "properly" mirror geometry for the purposes of baking and rigging. While this is done in blender 2.79 these practices can be applied to just about any modelling program.

[@lordyrich]

nice video. what are the negatives of leaving the mirrored UVs on top of each other?

[@MichaelShilliday]

@@lordyrich can cause baking artifacts as the normal map light source is trying to bake multiple light directions on the same faces.

[@lordyrich]

@@MichaelShilliday Thanks, I downloaded some WoW models just to have a look and they slap the mirrored UVs on top. perhaps it doesnt matter on WoWs engine.

[@MichaelShilliday]

@@lordyrich old wow textures were hand painted, you can also move uvs post bake, I actually move mine back overtop after baking anyway. So it’s not that out of the ordinary

[@legocreators]

Is there a reason you're still using 2.79?

[@MichaelShilliday]

Habit. 2.8 nuked a bunch of my shortcuts and rearranged everything to the point of it being more laborious to use. I CAN use newer versions but I don't particularly like them. I'm effectively using 2.79 as long as I can because I prefer it. Newer versions don't really revolutionize my workflow.

[@el33tkrew]

Hello I don't know how to describe this issue but basically my custom 3d model I have some UV's on top of each other and it works fine, but there are parts where I'm using a mirror and in blender it would like fine, but on dota itself, there would be gaps there. Is this video the solution to that? (I am using an existing custom model)

[@MichaelShilliday]

@@el33tkrew what kind of gaps

[@el33tkrew]

@@MichaelShilliday this is why it's weird to explain. Let's use a cape as an example. On the outside of the cape there would be like holes/gaps in between vertices, but then you flip around to see the back of the cape (the mirrored right at the back of your character/Front view) it would be inverted of the cape where you would see the texture of the hole, but not the rest (the rest would be missing, but you know the cape exist there)

[@MichaelShilliday]

@@el33tkrew are your polygons triangulated and are any overlapping verticies welded?