BAKE | Texture Baking with Blender

Instructor:
Chunck Trafagander

Master the Art & Science of Texture Baking

Texture baking is the technique of applying geometric data from one 3D model to another through image textures. Conceptually it's simple to understand but execution can be trickier than you might expect.

If you're interested in game asset creation, texture baking is an important technique to master. While Blender includes a full set of baking features, it's not always the most intuitive.

This course is designed to comprehensively explain baking as a concept, troubleshoot the potential issues, and share expert workflow insight.

Get Caught Up

Are you brand new to Blender?

These courses should help you get up to speed in no time.

Want to learn more about Game Asset Creation?

Baking is a technique we've taught many times through the years. Expand your understanding with these courses:

What you will learn

  • Proper steps for baking textures in Blender's Cycles engine
  • Why and when to use cages
  • The importance of face orientation
  • The effects of mesh triangulation when baking
  • Fixing wavy baked projections
  • Knowing when and where to sharpen edges
  • Solving pixel bleed with pixel margin
  • Baking inverted stacks
  • Utilizing floating geometry

Chapter 1

Theory

Learn core concepts of the texture baking process. We will cover important ideas that you'll need to understand to ensure you have a solid foundation for the rest of the course.

Chapter 2

Pitfalls

Baking can produce a surprising number of technical issues. From overlapping geometry to pixel bleed to flipped faces, this chapter diagnoses a myriad of common problems and how to troubleshoot them.

Chapter 3

Techniques

We can do some clever things to make the baking process easier and more effective. Gain expert insight to enhance your baking prowess.

Chapter 4

Homework

Put your fresh baking knowledge to the test! These exercises begin with problematic bakes that you need to troubleshoot and resolve.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR

Chunck Trafagander

Hello there! As a Biome Artist at Mighty Canvas Inc, I spend most of my days creating game assets. By night, I'm an instructor teaching Blender, Instamat, and Substance mostly. Check out my other courses for CG Cookie as well as my YouTube channel if you're interested!

Get this course and 271 others by joining CG Cookie

Awarded upon completion:
100xp +
Course Curriculum
2 Reviews
  • M
    NATHAN MARSH(MarshN3D) ·

    This course is very well structured and paced with many opportunities to test your knowledge of theory and use new techniques. I appreciate having the lessons arranged as a reference guide for baking issues, rather than a step-by-step "follow-me" guide. Even though Blender is used exclusively, the knowledge and techniques employed here are software agnostic.

    • author Chunck Trafagander(Chunck) ·

      Ecstatic to hear that, thank you for checking out the course!

      I'm stoked to hear the course structure works for what you need. Texture baking can be unforgiving and needlessly complicated at times, so my goal is to make any subsequent watches of BAKE as straightforward and painless as possible when you run into troubles.

      Thank you for the glowing review! Best of luck in your texture baking. 👨‍🍳

  • Derek Chestnut(dbchest) ·

    This was one of the best courses I've attended here at CG Cookie. It's probably a preferential thing and I can't quite put my finger on it, but all of the material that was covered was easy to digest and very relevant; there is very little to no fat in this course, which was refreshing.

    I started Blender with the focus of game asset creation and baking is one of those things that is so essential to making high-quality game assets that I was just so happy when I saw this course launch and I wanted to attend right away; what's even more exciting is that it met my every expectation, so five stars!

    • author Chunck Trafagander(Chunck) ·

      Wow, beyond thrilled to have met every expectation! My hope is that BAKE acts as a good introduction to texture baking, and as a solid (and concise) reference for any subsequent watches when you run into baking issues down the road. When you just want a fix to your problem, the last thing you need is to go searching through a 30-minute video...

      I'm honoured you've enjoyed your time with BAKE! Thank you for the five stars, I'm looking forward to seeing some killer textures. 😄