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

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  • $\begingroup$ 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. $\endgroup$
    – user5875
    Sep 2, 2014 at 12:49
  • $\begingroup$ @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 $\endgroup$
    – Nolan
    Mar 27, 2016 at 13:37

2 Answers 2

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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

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  • $\begingroup$ I followed you steps but bakeType Combined is not available in my properties settings not able to generate image. $\endgroup$ Jun 26, 2014 at 14:15
  • $\begingroup$ 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 $\endgroup$ Jun 27, 2014 at 5:56
  • $\begingroup$ @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. $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Jun 27, 2014 at 6:00
  • $\begingroup$ 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 " $\endgroup$ Jun 27, 2014 at 6:19
  • $\begingroup$ @user1755630 Is it UV unwrapped? $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Jun 27, 2014 at 6:20
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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.

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  • $\begingroup$ "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 $\endgroup$
    – Mr Zak
    Dec 1, 2017 at 15:43

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