Easy Bake 2 - Texture, UV, Procedural Materials and more

If you possess a model equipped with more than one texture and material UV-mapped onto it, or perhaps if there's an abundance of materials and textures, the subsequent desire might be to consolidate them into a singular entity. The conventional process would involve exporting them into an Image Editor, mixing and then incorporating them into Blender.

However, with Easy Bake 2, the cumbersome task of material amalgamation is effectively resolved. This tool facilitates the amalgamation of all materials associated with the designated object into a single material, which can be effortlessly exported as an image and subsequently edited. Alternatively, it allows for direct UV mapping without necessitating any modifications.

New features of this addon include an updated UI, fully re-written code for Blender's newest version 4.0, major bugfixes and stability improvements as well as new features allowing for Alpha and Emission strength baking.

Alternatively, you can divide material maps by utilizing the 'Split Slots' function, which is the opposite of the default process, enabling the individual export of each material slot.

'Bake Queue' addition enables the bulk baking of multiple objects and their material slots, eliminating the need for lengthy manual exports.

A standout feature of Easy Bake 2 is the export of procedural textures, combinations and modifications generated from Node Groups, a functionality notably absent in default Blender. By enabling the export of textures in this manner, the addon enables smooth and effortless data transfer to any desired destination, which is an otherwise unfeasible task.

With the recent Easy Bake 2 update, you can now explore a diverse array of shader nodes beyond the limitations of BSDF. Effortlessly tailor parameters, create groups, and generate presets as you seamlessly progress through the texture-baking procedure. Please note that baking out of BSDF is not compatible with the Bake queue.

While it involves a more sophisticated approach, the resulting enhanced flexibility and control over the output make it an outstanding feature.

Merge objects by exporting the UV maps of multiple objects into a singular material. Such a function can prove to be valuable particularly when aiming to streamline the bulk export process for utilization in an Image Editor or for other purposes.

Having multiple objects selected will attempt to merge their UVs into one. This only happens if the project has previously been saved, and if Save Bake is enabled. Otherwise it will just bake the active object as normal. Be aware that the process of doing this wipes the History so you won’t be able to Undo changes.

The File Path is set globally (shared across all objects) but you can add an extra file path info to the ‘Name’ property. Dynamic commands still work, so a ‘Name’ of “{object}\T_{type}” will put saved images in the given ‘File Path’, inside a folder which is named the same as the object.

BSDF nodes nested inside of ‘Groups’ can be found and put to baking, tho remember that multiple BSDF nodes in one material can cause issues.

FAQ

The .zip doesn’t install in Blender

• Please un-zip the archive and install the .py script. Please enable file extensions if you can’t see it.

How do I activate an addon?

• Use this 20 sec guide – https://youtu.be/wOv4oHO5Kqg

VIDEO DOCUMENTATION

DOCUMENTATION

Location

Panel
Material Properties ‣ Easy Bake

Easy Life
Addon Preferences

ActionsBake (dropdown)
The dropdown lists all supported map types that can be baked. Clicking the relevant bake type inside the dropdown will cause that type to be baked

Bake All (queue)
Starts baking all objects listed inside the Bake Queue. Bakes every enabled tickbox ‘map’ of every object.

Copy/Paste Settings
Found in Easy Bake as well as the Bake Queue, clicking Copy will copy all the object’s bake settings, and clicking Paste will paste these settings. This is to make synchronising settings across different objects quickly. Copying settings from Easy Bake to the  Bake Queue or vice versa will not work.

Easy Life Update
Add/Remove Set
The set contains a list of items: properties to bake from. Each set appears in the dropdown to the right of the ‘Bake’ dropdown. When a non-default Set is active, this dropdown also contains a ‘Default BSDF’ option to return the Set to the original ‘Principled BSDF-only’ setup

Add/Remove Item
Available inside a set, add or removes items to it. These items each represent one specific bake property: one input of one node. These appear in the ‘Bake’ dropdown when that Set is active and require at least Name, Display name and either a Node Type or Node Name or both

Make Set
Adds the currently active (highlighted in white) node to the currently active Set. It adds all inputs so you might want to remove some of them. It also adds a ‘Weight’ input which is only used internally and will give an error if you try to bake it

Load/Save Set
Loads a Set from a preset or saves the currently active Set. These files are saved as a .json file. The one that came with this addon, “Default BSDF Shaders.json”, contains a Set that bakes from some of the default non-Principled BSF shaders, such as Diffuse BSDF, and Emissive.

Custom sets are not preserved when disabling or uninstalling the addon, so be sure to export (Save) your sets so you can restore (Load) them later

SettingsObject Properties

Name
Name the baked image will generate with. To the end of the name ‘.png’ will be added. You can use ‘dynamic name commands’ by typing specific words inside of curly brackets, {like this}.
Valid dynamic names are shown by hovering your cursor over the Name input and are on one of the posters that came with this addon.

UV Map
Sets which UV map to use when baking. This input displays a list of all UV maps that exist on the object. If nothing is set, it bakes with whatever UV map is currently active

Width/Height
Defines the X and Y size (in pixels) that the image will generate with

Scene Properties
Override
When true, new images will be saved over old images. This is only the case when the newly generated image shares the same name as an image that already exists. When Override is off, it will keep the old image and the new, renaming the new with a unique number at the end (example.001.png)

Split Slots
By default, all material slots in an object are all baked in to one texture. When Split Slots is enabled, every slot has its own image generated. It is recommended to include the dynamic name “{slot}” when using  Split Slots, or each layers’ image will save over the top of the others

Save Bake
When true, will attempt to save all baked images

File Path
The location the baked image will be saved to. The default value of ‘//’ is recognized by Blender as pointing to the local directory (the file location that the project is saved to).
This only works if the Blender file has been saved. Blender may give an error if you’re trying to save to a location that it doesn’t have write permission to or if you include invalid characters in your name.
Since this File Path property is saved globally (to the scene), you may include file path information in the object’s Name to give object-specific folders.

Easy Life Update
Display Name
The name of the bake item as it appears in the ‘Bake’ dropdown

Node Type
The internal ‘type’ Blender recognizes the desired node as. You can find this with the console command below

Node Name
The external name, or ‘nickname’ if you will given to the node. You can set this yourself in the properties panel. Using a custom name is useful when there are more than one of the same ‘Type’ of node in one shader, or when you want to specify a generic node to bake from across materials without caring exactly what Type that node is

Input Name
The name of the input you want to us on the node you’re baking from. This is usually just the name displayed in the Shader editor, but for when it isn’t, you can use the console command below.

Bake Queue
Object
Targets the object to bake from

Tickboxes
Toggles on or off each map that should be baked. Every box that is ticked will cause that map to be baked.

All other settings work as already defined

Using the Console CommandsNode ‘Type’
D.materials[‘material_id’].node_tree.nodes[‘node_id’].type

Input Name
D.materials[‘material_id’].node_tree.nodes[‘node_id’].inputs[‘input_id’]

How to use these commands
These commands are typed into the Python Console. While typing, you can press TAB to get auto-completion. For example, if you type D.mat and press tab, it will automatically complete it to D.materials.

It will also give suggestions. For example, when you’re not sure what the ‘node_id’ is, you can type out “D.materials[‘material_id’].node_tree.nodes[‘”, press TAB and it will give suggestions to help you find what you’re looking for.

‘material_id’ is the name of the material which contains the node you want to get the information from. It’s the same name as is shown at the top of the shader editor. ‘node_id’ is the internal name for the node. This isn’t the same as the ‘Name’ property mentioned before (that’s more like a user-defined nickname). Likewise, ‘input_id’ is the internal name of the node.

Since you won’t know the internal name of the node or the input, you can type to that part of the command and press TAB to get a list of suggestions, which should include the node you want.

CHANGELOG

Easy Bake 2 – version 1.3

• Fixed bug in UV Map picker not changing the UV map baked from when using the Bake Queue

Easy Bake 2 – version 1.2

    • The dynamic name “{slot}” now works better. Previously, when not using ‘Split Slots’, it would be blank (““). Now, it produces the name of the object’s material (when the object has only one material) or “MultiSlot” when the object has several materials
    • Introduced the ‘Easy Life’ update that lets you bake from anything you want, including custom-grouped nodes and 3rd party shaders from addons (not compatible with the Bake Queue)

Easy Bake 2 – version 1.1

• Now has the option to autosave before baking, so long as the project has been saved once before. Enable in the addon preferences
• Will now display when baking has finished in the terminal when using the Bake Queue. Go to Window > Toggle System Console
• The cursor will now switch to ‘thinking’ when baking is taking place
• Now able to find BSDF nodes even when nested inside of ‘Groups’. Having multiple BSDF nodes in one material will still cause issues!
• Compatible only with Blender 4.0. If you wish to use for 3.6, use version 1.0