Digital Painting Color Maps - Game Character Creation with Blender and Unity - page 141

One potential avenue to pursue for this type of shading is to bake ambient occlusion.
Ambient occlusion is the shading cast between surfaces on an object. Figure 6.7 shows
ambient occlusion baked into a 3D model.

Figure 6.7
Ambient occlusion
baked into a 3D
model

Like normals, ambient occlusion can be baked and is one of the baking choices in the
Bake Mode drop-down list in the Render panel of the Properties editor, as you can see in
Figure 6.8.
Ambient occlusion maps make good layers for digital paintings. When made clear
with layer mixing settings, they can take care of shading in complicated models. In
Figure 6.9, the ambient occlusion map is applied with a Multiply blending mode.
Finally, it is important to note that painting color maps is best done when the art-
ist uses modular elements to fill in the UVs. Patterns,
duplicated layers, and mirroring are very important when
painting symmetrical elements of characters and game
objects. In the previously displayed color maps, copying
and moving layers proved useful for things like shoes,
hands, and other symmetrical details.
Now that you understand digital painting software and
some of what makes digital painting color maps different
from regular digital painting, you can begin working on
your own color map for the zombie model.

Figure 6.8
Choosing
Ambient Occlusion
from Blender's
Bake Mode
drop-down list