Texturing & materials · Intermediate

Baking

Saving slow detail or lighting into a texture so it never has to be recalculated

Also called Texture baking

What is baking in 3D?

Baking is saving the result of a slow calculation into a texture so it never has to be worked out again. Common bakes copy high-poly detail into a normal map, store soft shadows in an ambient occlusion map, or record a scene’s lighting into a lightmap for fast playback.

Think of it like this

It is like photographing a sandcastle: building it took hours and it may wash away, but the print shows it instantly and lasts.

Where it fits in a 3D project

  1. Create
  2. Surface
  3. Rig
  4. Animate
  5. Render
  6. Export

Surface: Giving the shape its color and material: UVs, textures and shaders.

How baking works

  1. 01Set up the source: a detailed model, a lit scene or a complex material.
  2. 02Give the target model clean UVs that do not overlap, to receive the result.
  3. 03The software calculates the detail or lighting for each texel and writes it into an image.
  4. 04Plug the baked image into the target model’s material.

Baking vs rendering

PropertyBakingRendering
OutputA texture used on the modelA finished image or video frame
WhenOnce, ahead of timeEvery frame or shot
PurposeSaves work for laterShows the scene to viewers

Bake whatever stays fixed so it costs nothing later; render to make the images people actually see.

Where baking is used

  • Normal and AO maps from high-poly sculpts for games
  • Lightmaps for static scenes in game engines
  • Flattening procedural materials into plain textures for export

Beginner tip

Messy bakes usually come from overlapping UVs or a cage, the invisible shell that guides the bake, sitting too tight. Give each island its own space and push the cage out slightly.

Terms related to baking

Baking FAQ

What is texture baking?
Copying information into an image laid out on a model’s UVs, such as detail from a high-poly sculpt, shadows, or the look of a procedural material. The baked texture then works anywhere, without the original setup.
Why bake textures?
Speed and portability. Real-time engines cannot run heavy calculations every frame, and many procedural materials only work in the app that made them. A baked image loads fast and works in any engine.
Can I bake textures in Blender?
Yes. Blender has built-in baking for normal, ambient occlusion, color, roughness, emission and full lighting maps. You can bake from a high-poly source onto a low-poly target, or bake a material onto its own UVs.
How does baking normal maps work?
A detailed high-poly model sits over a low-poly one with UVs. The baker casts rays from the low-poly surface, records which way the high-poly surface faces where each ray lands, and writes that into the normal map.

Updated October 29, 2026 · Browse all 3D terms