Baking the normal map

In this section, we're going to bake a normal map from our high-poly mesh to our low-poly mesh. The reason why we're doing this is to add the finer details as a normal map to our low-poly mesh. This will result in a low-poly model that looks like a high-poly model because of the normal map. This is a great way to keep your poly count low without losing the finer details. Let's get started.

Creating the blank normal map image texture

We first need to create a blank image texture on our low-poly mesh. This image texture will become our normal map:

1. Click the Mushroom_LP low-poly mesh in the outliner to select it.
2. With the low-poly mesh selected, click the Shading tab at the top of the interface to enter the Shading workspace.
3. Click New to create a new material.
4. Let's create a new image texture by pressing Shift + A and then selecting Texture | Image Texture. You can also use the search function to search for Image Texture...