9.5.2

658 • CHAPTER 13
RENDERING • RENDER MENU • 659
 Normal maps
 UV maps
If you want to avoid having to subsequently assign the bitmap to a material, then an object, use the
“Bake Object” function (see below). This will, though, greatly limit the control you have opposed to
using the manual method.
Why bake textures?
Let’s assume you want to render an animation, and a complex shader or area shadow has to be
rendered for each image. You can, for example, save a lot of render time by baking the shader and
projecting it onto the object as a normal image le. You can even render lighting, bump, Ambient
Occlusion, etc. onto the texture, which lets you avoid having to light these objects, depending on your
scene (in this case, add an “Luminance” material channel to your texture). The integrated optimized
mapping makes sure the UV coordinates are placed in such a manner as to not overlap.
How to “Bake”
In contrast to CINEMA 4D versions prior to R9.5, textures are now baked including all texture tags.
Now you simply select the object itself, not the texture tag to be baked. If the object contains several
materials, i.e. texture tags, they will be baked, taking hierarchy and alpha channels into consideration
– exactly as the object would normally be rendered.
Proceed as follows when you want to bake an object’s texture:
 Select the object in the Object Manager. The object must have a texture
tag.
 From the main menu, select “Render / Bake Texture”. The active object will
be assigned a “Bake Texture” tag.
 Change the settings in the newly created tag, as needed.
 Nothing will be baked until the “Bake” button in the “Options” tab is pressed.
The render process will be shown in the preview window in the same tab.
The “Bake Texture” tag will remain and be saved with the scene so you can keep a good overview of
your previous work. An object can have numerous “Bake Texture” tags! In addition, several textures
can be baked simultaneously – simply select the desired “Bake Texture” tags and click on “Bake”.
NOTE:
In rare cases, awed texture baking can result from inaccuracies in calculation.
If this happens, white pixels can be seen, placed randomly on your image
le.