Quote - It can depend on where the high lights are placed though and the image maps for even complex artifacts can be produced using poser itself in a matter of minutes  so it is not really a draw back.

Actually it's a rather severe drawback.

But you seem to be unaware of the correct approach here, something that is widely used in the CG industry.

You don't bake the highlights, ever.

But you can and should bake the occlusion shadows and the patina. That's what you're talking about really.

The shader should still do real reflections, but those should be modulated by a baked-in occlusion map or wear map or whatever it is you want to represent.

That map would decrease the potential for a highlight by being used to control how much any part of the prop reflects. But it would still do the actual reflecting to calculate the highlights.

With the control map in use, realism is very much increased on an old, worn or weathered object. But you don't throw out the highlights by baking them. That's just not established practice. It's established that such practice is totally inadequate.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)