Workflow question...

[Jeff Gilbert 0]

I'm relatively new to Substance Painter. I'm trying to understand the workflow. I went through Tim Bergholz - ChamferZone https://www.facebook.com/ChamferZone tutorials. That is where I learned of SP. I'm wondering what the role of the High Poly obj file is in Substance Painter. Unless I missed something, it seemed like we unwrapped the low poly version of the model then exported that as an fbx file. Then took an unwrapped turbosmoothed model and exported that as an obj. The new project was created with the fbx then the hi poly obj was added into the Baking process.

I originally thought the texture set created with the low poly obj would get mapped to the hi poly. But, I realized I have a hole in my understanding. For the model below I started a new project in SP with the FBX then imported the OBJ as the high poly in the baking process. After baking was finished, I would see geometry in SP that looked like the low poly. I repeated the process several times but got the same result. Then I thought... maybe the outputed texture set will map to the obj? That didn't seem to be the case in a few tests.

So... Here is my question. How do I get the texture on to a high poly object? Do I just need to import an unwrapped high poly initially? I'm having trouble understanding what the hi poly .obj file contributes to this work flow if I can't get the texture mapped to it. I'm sure I'm missing something... so if someone could help me understand what I'm missing that would be awesome!

Thanks - Jeff.

Low Poly fbx
High Poly obj
Output from SP

[boddie]

In the usual scenario, the goal is to get a textured low poly model out that has the appearance of the high poly geometry.

You use the high poly model to bake a normal map for the unwrapped low poly model.  Then paint the material textures onto the low poly model.  Export the textures for use with the low poly model in your game engine or other renderer.