Get Best Results#

Baking from highpoly#

Texture baking often includes transferring high-resolution mesh details to a low-res model. Models with loads of geometry require more computer power, and details sometimes aren’t even noticed in the final production. On the other hand, lowpoly model is easier to handle, and you can bake high-resolution details onto it.

Lowpoly Geometry

Highpoly Geometry

Rendered Lowpoly,

baked textures

Rendered Highpoly,

took 60% more time

Read more about how you can set up High to Lowpoly bake in BakeMaster.

Understanding Cages#

A Cage is an inflated copy of your base lowpoly model. When baking highpoly details onto a low-res mesh, a Cage limits the distance of shot detail-capturing projection rays.

How Cage works

The Cage should expand far enough to cover all highpoly geometry for best results. Expanding the Cage too far may cause glitches as projection might intersect other meshes in the scene.

Cage not fully covering

highpoly and lowpoly

Cage is correct,

no issues

In BakeMaster, you can choose a Cage object you created or specify the Extrusion value to inflate the lowpoly.

How to set extrusion

Extrusion - inflate the lowpoly by the specified distance for baking, Max Ray Distance - the max distance of shot rays to capture details, shouldn't be less than extrusion.

How to set a Cage

Choose a Cage Object from the available, you might want to set the Cage Extrusion value to 0, otherwise, the cage will be extruded.

Decrease Baking time#

Map resolution#

When choosing a higher map resolution, consider whether it’d be noticeable in the output rendered image, estimate the distance from the camera to that specific model, its relative size in the render, and how many details would be distinguished.

What’s the best sample count#

Baking time also increases when setting the sample count very high. It’ll result in cleaner and smoother bakes, but you can keep them pretty low and use Denoising later.

AO fragment, how long the bake took:

8 samples, 4k,

not denoised, 39s

128 samples, 4k,

not denoised, 6m48s

8 samples, 4k,

denoised, 1m13s

PBR-Metallic and PBR-Specular#

PBR stands for physically based rendering workflow that uses enhanced lightning and shading techniques to make textured models more realistic and believable. Because all the data isn’t in a single image, it reproduces light bounces, reflections, and other microsurface details more accurately. And with global illumination and indirect light sources, it enhances the realism of the scene.

There’re two PBR workflows existing: PBR-Metallic and PBR-Specular.

PBR-Metallic#

The most used type of PBR texturing is PBR-Metallic, and a wide range of software supports it. PBRM consists of Albedo, Metalness, and Roughness maps.

Albedo holds color data without any light or shadow impact, just the color itself.
Metalness map is a grayscale image describing which parts of a model are metal and which are not.
Roughness is also a grayscale map that carries which parts are rough and which are reflective.

Albedo

Metalness

Roughness

PBR-Specular#

This type of workflow is used less widely but is excellent for its ability to represent reflectiveness more precisely. It uses Diffuse, Specular, and Glossiness maps.

Similarly to the PBR-Metallic, the Diffuse map stores only color data, without any light or shadow impact, but metallic parts of the model are black on this map, as they have no diffuse color.
Specular map determines the color of specular reflections, metallic parts of a model are vibrant and colorful, while non-metallic are grey (Hex#383838).
Glossiness map is an inverted copy of the Roughness map explained previously. It describes glossy and rough parts of a model.

Diffuse

Specular

Glossiness

The workaround with BakeMaster#

Read how you can bake maps of both workflows in BakeMaster.

Color Management#

Configuring the color management of your bakes is essential to ensure that your textures have the desired color scheme. Color management is indispensable to keep in mind if you create maps for professional or commercial purposes, as color accuracy can be crucial in these contexts. By accessing the Output panel and expanding the Color Management section, you can easily modify the color settings to achieve the desired results.

Color Management

Color Spaces#

In order for textures to shade models in a correct and realistic way, their color spaces have to be set up right. This will ensure the data (like color or surface information) is properly read from images and doesn’t break further pipelines.

Attention

It’s worth noting that BakeMaster officially supports the following color spaces, including:

sRGB
ACES
XYZ

If you opt to use a different color space, you can still bake, but please bear in mind that you may not have the same level of customization as with the three options mentioned above.

The name of the color space used in your scene will appear at the panel's top

Texture Types#

When it comes to customization, there are three texture types to consider: color texture, data texture, and linear texture.

Color Texture
Includes baked color textures with color data such as Diffuse, Albedo, Base Color, ColorIDs maps, etc.
Data Texture
Refers to baked textures with non-color data such as Normal, Metalness, Roughness, Displacement, AO maps, etc.
Linear Texture
For textures with linear color data and is used for EXR file formats if Linear EXR is checked.

The table below shows the texture category each Map type goes to:

Color Texture	Data Texture	Linear Texture
AlbedoM	Metalness	(All from Data Texture if `Linear EXR` is checked and Map’s file format is EXR
AlbedoS	Roughness
Emission/Lightmap	Specular
BSDF Pass (depends on type)	Glossiness
Combined	Opacity
Emit	Normal
Diffuse	Displacement
Specular (Albedo-Specular)	Vector Displacement
Environment	Position
	Decal Pass
	AO
	Cavity
	Curvature
	Thickness
	ID
	Mask
	XYZ Mask
	Gradient Mask
	Edge Mask
	Wireframe Mask
	BSDF Pass (depends on type)
	VertexColor Layer
	Ambient Occlusion
	Shadow
	Normal
	UV
	Roughness
	Glossy
	Transmission

Configuration#

For each texture type, you can choose default Color Space, File Format, and Bit Depth.

BakeMaster comes with standard, commonly used configurations, which will suit in most cases. You can also customize it as much as you like for your specific requirements.

Caution

Be careful when making changes and ensure that you have a good understanding of the subject matter before proceeding.

Color Space

The Color Space of your scene

Color Texture Settings

Color Texture Color Space

Default color space for color textures containing containing color data

Color Texture File Format

Default file format for color textures

Color Texture Bit Depth

Default color depth for color textures

Data and Linear Texture settings

Similar to Color Texture settings

Linear EXR

If checked, if Map's file format is EXR, the output colorspace will be chosen from the Linear Texture category

Linear sRGB

Tick this and set any linear color space for either Color, Data, or Linear Texture above. This will bake textures in linearized sRGB - without gamma correction

If your color space is ACES, your workaround is to choose Utility - sRGB - Linear for any category to achieve the same result

Quick Apply

Your configured rules get applied to new Maps when you're adding them. To apply to all existing, click this button

Apply Scene

Apply scene color management settings configured in the Properties tab like View Transform, Exposure, Gamma, and Curves

Compositor

Tick to run bakes through nodes in Compositor screen.

Helpful when you have additional color management set up there that you want to apply to all bakes

sRGB#

sRGB is Blender’s default Display Device and the most wide-spread elsewhere currently. The images you view on the internet and textures you download are highly likely to be in that space.

For sRGB color space, it is recommended to stick to sRGB for Color Texture and Non-color for Data Texture. This ensures that color textures are saved and displayed to match how end user sees them on screen; and non-color data textures are treated as is with no color transformation to properly provide mesh or other information.

sRGB Color Texture

Non-color Data Texture

Advanced - Linear sRGB

This isn’t a very popular format, but sRGB can be also linearized. This means sRGB textures won’t have gamma correction applied.

By enabling this option and choosing a preferable Linear color space for Color Texture or Data Texture, baked textures will look as if they were in Linear, not sRGB color space:

Linear sRGB unchecked

Good to view on your monitor

Linear sRGB

No gamma correction

ACES#

The Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) is a standardized and comprehensive color management tool that simplifies the process of managing colors during production. It is designed to handle various input sources such as film and computer graphics, and it guarantees consistency and reliability throughout the production process. When images are converted to the ACES standard, teams can work together seamlessly, regardless of the source of the images, and attain consistent and predictable color results. The ACES system provides a dependable workspace for artists, who can now concentrate on their creative work without worrying about technical issues or color inconsistencies.

This documentation does not cover all the aspects and principles of ACES. Instead, it offers a practical approach to setting up BakeMaster for texture baking in the ACES color space. This way, you can avoid going round in circles and achieve your desired results efficiently.

Scene’s and Compositor’s effect#

Scene Color Management

If you want your scene color management settings to be applied to bakes, Apply Scene is the way. By turning it on, you can, for example, add Filmic view transform to baked textures if the scene has got one and other settings like Exposure, Gamma, Curves configured in the Properties -> Color Management.

Apply Scene unchecked

No effect

Apply Scene checked

Filmic View Transform, 0.9 Exposure

Compositor Nodes

Ticking Compositor will run bakes through compositor nodes. This is helpful when you’ve got additional color management set up in compositor (e.g. custom color adjustments, etc.) and want it to affect baked images.

In Short#

Default Rules

Use to set default Color Space, File Format, and Bit Depth for baked images. You’re most likely to tweak the last two. Be careful when changing the color space.

Apply Settings

Preferences get applied to new Maps that you’re adding.

To update existing, click Quick Apply button.

Apply Scene or/and Compositor

Tick Apply Scene to apply View Transform, Exposure, Gamma, and Curves to your bakes.

Tick Compositor to make BakeMaster run textures through color management in compositor nodes.

View Image Color Space

View image color space in the Image/UV Editor:

Select an image
Hit N on your keyboard to open properties
Open Image tab
Look at the Color Space property under the filepath.

Help system#

The Help panel offers a couple of buttons that will take you to the corresponding pages of BakeMaster’s online documentation you’re currently reading.

Main Page

How to Setup Objects

How to Setup Maps

How to Bake

Support