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I am able to bake objects with one material, but when there is more than one, an error comes up: No active image found in material "blah-blah". Most materials are used on many different objects, so I made each one a single user copy (clicking the number beside the material name field in Properties > Materials and renaming it descriptively). That didn't resolve it though.

I have been following the steps in this Blender Guru video (which explains how to bake the lighting onto an object's surface so it takes much less rendering to display it in an app like Sketchfab, or so you can work on it displayed in Render mode in real time):

UV unwrap > create and name image > add Image Texture > link to the image just created > make sure that node is selected > Bake. Since in this case the objects had several materials, I added an Image Texture to each one, linked it, and left it selected.

Do the UV maps need to be divided up so they only are for one material each? Does that mean I have to divide up the objects into a group of objects each of one material? What is the best way to do this?

(Oops, the file doesn't have the object selected that I was working on when this cropped up - it is the green floors inside the structure, named Dugout Levels.)

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  • $\begingroup$ just add a texture node with the target texture in each material and make sure that this node is selected (active) in each material before the bake (these nodes do not need to be connected to anything) $\endgroup$
    – lemon
    Aug 10, 2016 at 16:23
  • $\begingroup$ You need to select these nodes (so that they are active, rounded by yellow) $\endgroup$
    – lemon
    Aug 10, 2016 at 16:34
  • $\begingroup$ @kimholder do you want to bake the materials on a single texture? $\endgroup$
    – Denis
    Aug 10, 2016 at 16:41
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    $\begingroup$ @kimholder then you will need to distribute the UVs so they do not overlap and select the all the objects that use the texture and then click bake $\endgroup$
    – Denis
    Aug 10, 2016 at 16:49
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    $\begingroup$ @kimholder you need to flip normals thats why it is black $\endgroup$
    – Denis
    Aug 10, 2016 at 16:58

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EVERY material (on the active object) needs an active texture. Note: it doesn't need to be connected to anything...just needs to be there with a valid image and be selected. That error report will tell you which material its missing from so you can quickly add it. It would be a good idea to hook a uv map node up to it if you have more than 1 uv map on the object.

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  • $\begingroup$ If i understand you correctly, i did that, but it wasn't clear from how i'd phrased the question, so i just added it in. $\endgroup$
    – kim holder
    Aug 10, 2016 at 16:31

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