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I created a interior scene and i don't know how to bake a texture using cycles bake.

David
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Sachin Vani
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  • You don't have to be in Object Mode to bake, it will bake in Edit Mode as well (at least it works on my computer). But really make sure that you have selected the texture node and chosen the right image for it. Another reason could be that your object has more than one material assigned to it. In this case they all have to have image textures assigned to them - you could choose one image for all materials of your object if the uv maps don't overlap or different images for different materials. –  Sep 02 '14 at 12:49
  • @user5875 This doesn't really make sense. Could you explain a little differently? Because that is my case i have a model that I joines the pieces together after texturing them so i could animate them. But how would i bake it then? I have three different images i am using – Nolan Mar 27 '16 at 13:37

2 Answers2

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With out more detail about the situation, it's hard to say how you might go about this if there are any special considerations.

Here are the basics:

  1. UV unwrap your object.

  2. Create a new image in the UV/image editor (Alt + N or Image > New).

  3. Add a texture node to the objects material(s) and select the new image. If there are more than 1 material repeat this for each one of them (easier to copy that Image Texture node and paste it into all materials):

enter image description here

  1. With the texture node selected, press bake in Properties > Render settings > Bake:

enter image description here

The color and shading on that object will be rendered to the image specified in the selected texture node.

If you switch to textured shading once this process is complete (for each object), the viewport will look something like this:

enter image description here

See the manual for more detail about the various options.

If you want to bake multiple objects to the same image:

  1. UV Unwrap your objects in such a way so that the UV maps don't overlap. An easy way to do this is by pressing Space> Smart UV unwrap or Space> Lightmap pack with all the objects selected.

  2. Bake each object with Clear disabled so that the existing pixels in the target image aren't erased before the baked shading is overlayed.

enter image description here

p2or
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gandalf3
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  • I followed you steps but bakeType Combined is not available in my properties settings not able to generate image. – Sachin Vani Jun 26 '14 at 14:15
  • Thanks , I was using blender 2.7 , i downloaded 2.71 and options are available. Now after pressing bake i get message No active layer found in the object – Sachin Vani Jun 27 '14 at 05:56
  • @user1755630 Sounds like it can't find the image to bake to.. Make sure you have an image texture node in all the materials used by the object you are baking. Also make sure they are selected, and are pointing to an image. – gandalf3 Jun 27 '14 at 06:00
  • I do this process with one cube object and render engine is set to the Cycles and also have an image texture node but still i get message "No active UV layer found in the object " – Sachin Vani Jun 27 '14 at 06:19
  • @user1755630 Is it UV unwrapped? – gandalf3 Jun 27 '14 at 06:20
  • I am not using UV unwrap but i am using UV image Editor to do step 3 and 4 – Sachin Vani Jun 27 '14 at 06:35
  • @user1755630 You have to UV unwrap it first (step 1). – gandalf3 Jun 27 '14 at 06:36
  • Thanks,Now i am able to generate cycle baking for objects. but not able to get a single texture image for more than one objects. – Sachin Vani Jun 27 '14 at 08:52
  • @user1755630 If you disable Clear in the bake panel (below the bake button), the baked shading will be overlayed on the existing image. – gandalf3 Jun 27 '14 at 08:57
  • I am able to generate texture image one for each object. I am not able to generate a single texture image for multiple objects like your explanation. – Sachin Vani Jun 27 '14 at 11:03
  • @user1755630 I created multiple texture images (one for each object) for the example in my answer, but it's possible to bake to one image. Updating answer. – gandalf3 Jun 27 '14 at 19:03
  • Thanks Sir, This is very helpful for me and now i am able to generate single texture image for multiple objects. I designed a model which have more than 300 objects including wooden floor, Image frames and other, So it looking quite difficult to generate UV unwrap for each object and separate there mesh on UV editor. – Sachin Vani Jun 28 '14 at 06:32
  • @user1755630 You could temporarily join the objects (Ctrl J) and arrange the UV islands with Ctrl P in the image editor. Then separate the objects with P > Loose parts in the 3D view. – gandalf3 Jun 28 '14 at 06:38
  • Hello Sir, I created a single texture image using 3 objects these are torus, Cube and Plane.color is different for each object,I used that model and image in Open gles but it is not looking like designed model blender.Is there any mistake made by me? – Sachin Vani Jun 30 '14 at 11:01
  • I get the message " No active image found in material object for body "0". I did all the steps as you said, in cycles, image texture etc. – Rick Jul 27 '14 at 20:50
  • Hah, you got me. I didn't have a image on all materials. – Kroltan Apr 13 '15 at 00:57
  • @gandalf3 what if i want to bake it to different images because my model had different textures and uvs and then i joined the objects of the model so i could animate it. So is there a way I can bake it so all three of my textures and images that i used show up? – Nolan Mar 27 '16 at 13:27
  • @Nolan Yes, I think that should work, but I haven't tested it. There's nothing preventing a single object from having multiple UV maps, multiple textures, or multiple materials, so it's certainly possible. Whether or not blender properly merges all of those when joining objects is what remains to be seen – gandalf3 Mar 27 '16 at 18:48
  • @gandalf3 so how would I do it? do you know? Would I just add that node talked about in the answer to each material? – Nolan Mar 29 '16 at 00:26
  • @Nolan Yes, and point it at different image files to your liking. (e.g. point the node in material A to target image A, the node in material B to target image B, etc). Baking multiple materials/objects to one image should also work, but be sure your UV maps don't overlap. – gandalf3 Mar 29 '16 at 01:02
  • Minor point of confusion that can cause the "No active image found in material.." error that @Rick mentioned. In step three, adding a new texture node, create a new image in that new texture node and then select the texture node. Then it will work. In my case I created a new texture node and selected it without creating a new image – Mitchell van Zuylen Nov 03 '21 at 07:43
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You have to be in object mode to bake. So unwrap in edit mode, create your new image in uv image editor by splitting a window, name it and save it on your hd. Now, go into object mode, select the image texture node so that it is highlighted in orange, then hit bake. Then, re save the image under the image drop down. I had the same problem.

Then, I got a new problem that required me add an image texture to another object in the scene before bake the current one.

Robert Cartaino
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Rick
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  • "You have to be in object mode to bake" not necessarily. When baking esp. passes like diffuse or other colors bake will work in Edit or pretty much any interaction mode – Mr Zak Dec 01 '17 at 15:43