PretzelBun

For this photogrammetry project, I upgraded my setup with a black photography backdrop, a turntable, and a tripod, making it easier to capture both close-up and wide shots efficiently.

This time, I scanned a pretzel bun to expand my growing food asset library. While my workflow remained consistent, I switched from using a phone to a DSLR camera for higher-quality images.

I imported the photos into Meshroom to generate a high-poly mesh, then cleaned it up in ZBrush using ZRemesher for a solid low-poly base. The mesh was then brought into Blender for UV unwrapping and further optimisation.

To generate a colour map, I re-imported the low-poly mesh into Meshroom. I refined the texture in Affinity Photo, removing any artefacts. The high-poly details were baked onto the low-poly model in Substance 3D Designer, creating the normal, roughness, and ambient occlusion maps. I then moved everything into Substance 3D Painter to finalise texturing and resize maps to 4K, 2K, 1K, and 512px for game-ready use.

After exporting texture sets optimised for both Unreal Engine and other platforms, I applied them in Blender and created LODs using the Decimate tool. By testing various decimation levels, I identified the optimal balance between detail and performance.

Finally, I imported the asset into Unreal Engine 5 to test LOD functionality and ensure everything performed as expected.