Texture baking projects information such as color, normals, ambient occlusion, or material values onto a target mesh's UV layout.
- Source
- High-detail asset
- Target
- UV-mapped mesh
- Common maps
- Normal, base color, AO, PBR
- Main risk
- Projection artifacts
Projection setup controls quality
Ray distance, cage shape, matching by name, UV padding, and tangent basis can all create visible errors. Inspect seams and thin regions closely.
Validate in the destination renderer
Color spaces, normal-map conventions, channel packing, and alpha modes vary by tool. Test the exported asset rather than relying only on the baking viewport.