How to bake multiple objects to one texture atlas in Blender with SimpleBake Add-on

Get all of my add-ons at BLENDERender.co/ap-blendertoo...
Get SimpleBake at blendermarket.com/products/si...
In this tutorial, we'll go over how to merge several objects and bake multiple materials into one using the add-on called SimpleBake. I have another video using the same tool to do a very simple bake and might be a good to watch if you just need to bake out one object.
This Add-On costs $10 and can be bought on Blendermarket.com here's the link:
blendermarket.com/products/si...
Im not affiliated with the product and I don't get any money from this, so I'm not exaggerating when I say this is one of my essential add-ons for Blender.

[@AJ79]

Very Helpful mate!

[@sam_pyrtuh]

Thank you so much for this tutorial. It has been incredibly helpful to me while working on commercial projects.

[@inkofthedragon]

Thanks for this! Can you describe the process of importing the objects into Unity? Do you just export each individual object as FBX? Does it come with the texture map attached to the object or do you have to apply the material in Unity separately? I'm fairly noob to this process, so describing the workflow would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

[@chrisgroff4981]

Cool video. Can you bake an object using the mix shader for multiple principled bsdf ? Also, I haven't figured out how to bake glass shaders.

[@hasanbasryand6880]

Hi. I'm wondering about such a thing. We can bake and output textures in the shading panel of the blender. For example, I created a lava flow, animation in the shading panel, so how do I output it? Also my main goal is to dump this output into an unreal engine.

[@user-mi6qb4pi3p]

Is it really possible that in such a complex plugin there is no possibility of group baking from high-poly to low-poly?

[@devlad]

Really wanted to like this tool. But with a simple model of 5k polygons in 12 objects, it just slaps the UVs on top of each other when baking multiple objects (regardless on if I unwrap them, or the add-on does). The exported glb doesn't even export the material.

[@123forafurry]

I had some probleems but it WORKS! :D

[@woomygfx]

watched the entire video to realise simplebake costs money! thanks for letting me know...

[@AlexPearce3d]

Hmm fair point. What would be the best way for future users do you think? Should I change the title to day something about 'paid add-on'?

[@woomygfx]

@@AlexPearce3d not that big of a problem lol, just kinda my fault for not checking the addon before watching the video xD

[@AlexPearce3d]

OK, cool.

[@irathil]

Mentioning at the beginning of the vid would be nice. You can add textfield now as vid is already online.

[@charlesnorman4676]

@@AlexPearce3d others let peeps know. one should inform; are you not here to inform? thus tutorials, to inform. there is nothing wrong with you presenting an addon that costs, my two cents.

[@zolo5425]

May I ask if there will be a feature to output multiple channels into one image in the future? Just like Substance Painter's "2D View", it is very helpful for some game projects that are not PBR.

[@glenhubbard1756]

I've just downloaded Simple Bake but there doesn't seem to be the ' Multiple objects to one texture set' option. Where has it gone in the latest version?

[@andrewmad]

Cool!!!

[@Daniel_Crane]

Can you do this, but instead of baking everything to one texture atlas, can you bake them to individual UDIM tiles?

[@teddybonzo8460]

Hey! Pretty sure I bought it last night or the day before, not sure really went on a spree getting baking addons, but the issue I face is atlasing 'ONE OBJECT' with different image textures to materials in different slots to one map so I can use that map on the whole mesh without lag, it's a character I got off of DAZ genesis 8, and the problem I face is joining all those materials from different slots into one atlas, have been cracking on this for like a week or so, not getting any work done.

[@AlexPearce3d]

Yeah I don't know of there is any smart way around this besides separating your mesh by material and then joining the materials. On static meshes that's not a problem and can be joined again afterwards but with characters it may be a bigger problem.

[@sulphurous2656]

Just ran into a similar problem, where I separated each material (head/face UVs, torso UVs, leg UVs, arm UVs) and baked each individually (Diffuse/SSS/Nrm) before rejoining them and realizing I have to deal with seams apparently caused by the SSS. Trying to troubleshoot right now. Edit: figured it out (I think) , Unwrap each vertex/material group on their own, and align them on the single tile. Afterwards, duplicate the model for as many groups as you have, and move the UV's you aren't baking off the island. That way you can bake all the textures within the same tile and have them align automatically, since you can just swap back to the master model with all the UV's in the same place on the original tile. Now let's see if Sorse concurs with my theory or not.

[@BaconSenpai]

. I have maps i'm doing full light baking on for an older game, and the mesh needs to be separated into hundreds of 1024x1024 textures because that's the max the game will let you load. This did it for me in 1 click, saving probably double digit hours of work. Money well spent.

[@DesignReady.]

Is baking all material into one image with the same resolution affect the quality ot not?

[@AlexPearce3d]

It depends on many factors. It doesn't have to. Texture resolution and texel density play a role. Pretty much any game you've seen or played uses a similar technique, sometimes for multiple objects. And it's not always about having the highest resolution. For sketchfab, for instance, I found if I lower the resolution of the textures, it loads faster and the "SD" quality looks as good as the HD version. Just experiment on your objects and see what works best. If you're not sure, just start with 4096x4096 because you can always transcode that to 2k or less later.

[@MurderMelody06]

Sir, I have one question, does this add-on support baking on UDIMs ?

[@AlexPearce3d]

I don't think so, to be honest.

[@TheHumppaidiootti]

In case you have not noticed: "Version 5.1.2 brings UDIM support! Bake to models with a UV map over UDIM tiles. UV map must be created manually. Still in alpha - use this feature with caution for the time being"

[@voidgirlash]

I'm tempted to buy this addon so I don't have to keep jumping between Marmoset and Substance Painter, but I'm unsure about its capability of baking good AO and Curvature maps, which are essential in my workflow. Also, it doesn't seem to have antialiasing, right?

[@AlexPearce3d]

I can't recommend it enough. To be clear, you can do all of it without the plug in, but just tonight, it probably saved me 3 hours and a lot of headaches, so it's definitely worth it. The developer is also very quick to respond so if you run into any issues you can reach out. You can bake AO and Curvature maps, under the Specials tab. I don't know about anti aliasing, but you can ask the dev, he might be able to add it.

[@voidgirlash]

@@AlexPearce3d I asked him on Blender Market yesterday, still waiting for him to reply. In the mean time, may I ask you why would you use Blender for baking instead of something like Substance or Marmoset? I see the advantage of doing all in just one place, but I'm unsure if the end result is worth it. I always get jagged edges when baking normals (hence my question regarding antialiasing), and noisy AO, which I guess can be fixed by increasing the samples at the expense of longer baking times. Oh and one last thing! Have you checked an addon called Textools? It's free and seems to do the same sort of things plus a lot more.

[@AlexPearce3d]

I've been testing a bunch of different render engines specifically because I'm not so happy with Blender's baking capabilities. I've found Octane for Blender to be the best for me and am exploring it more. Octane bakes lighting super fast on my machine but more importantly, i was able to make a simple add on that automates my baking, and can likely develop it more to be even better.

[@peskybees3dartist328]

Hi I just purchased your add-on but I'm having a few issues when it comes to baking on an existing UV map as I wanted to bake over it to combine two objects together. However your add-on won't let me do that the easy way as one of the objects I'm doing it via a cage. I've managed to produce the normals for the first object with the cage. But when I come to bake the normals for the second object, I click "multiple objects to one texture set" it won't let me as it mentions I need to have multiple objects in the selection (I don't need to rebake the first object.. I just need to combine the second object with the first's UV map). Also it mentions it cannot do it with the use alpha, and I don't have this ticked either

[@AlexPearce3d]

Hey Matthew, Simplebake is not my addon, but I do use it often. You're trying to bake high poly to low poly? If so, I think there's a separate option for that in simplebake.

[@AlexPearce3d]

Just looked at simplebake, the option is right below the pbr options, there is a box that says "bake selected objects to tarket object". There is a target object option as well as a cage object option and ray distance. You'd need to select the normal map for it to work.

[@peskybees3dartist328]

@@AlexPearce3d ahh thanks for taking the time to look at it Alex 😁👍

[@AlexPearce3d]

Let me know of it works, if not we can ask Lewis.

[@tejaspatel6582]

Does this work for high poly (sculpted) to low poly models too? Considering that a procedural material is applied to the high poly mesh.

[@AlexPearce3d]

Are you asking if SimpleBake works with high poly to low poly? If so the answer is yes. There's some sort of option to target the mesh as well I believe.

[@tejaspatel6582]

@@AlexPearce3d not simple bake, I know how to do high poly bakes using it already, I meant, does this texture atlas technique work for baking multiple textures from a high poly mesh into a single texture on a low poly mesh along with the high poly normal data.

[@AlexPearce3d]

@@tejaspatel6582 oh I see. Hmm 🤔. I think it could be possible, but I haven't tried that. It might be easier just to do the highpoly to low poly bake individually, then combine the results in a texture atlas. Does that make sense?

[@tejaspatel6582]

@@AlexPearce3d I see...yeah , I got what you meant

[@ramacharly9516]

Hi, I've bought the addon but I get error :"none type object has no attribute hide viewport' Any solution ? thank you

[@AlexPearce3d]

Rama, it's not my addon and don't know exactly what issue it is that you are having. After you installed it the first time, did you go back to edit preferences, addon, simplebake and update? Your best bet is to reach out to the developer on blendermarket.com and ask him. Also give him as much information as you can, what version of Blender your on what version of simplebake you're using, what operating system, when the error occurred, and copy /paste the trace back message if you can, by going to window, show console (if you're on windows os).

[@ramacharly9516]

@@AlexPearce3d Thank you, I've understood well that the add on wasn't yours, It was just a question :) I 'll ask the question to developer.

[@MurderMelody06]

Sorry, but I have another question, if I have multiple "slots" in one material, and all of those slots are assigned on specific area of an object, can I bake each slot individually ?

[@AlexPearce3d]

I think you have to separate those objects to bake them individually. You can do that by selecting the object, go to edit mode, select all, then press P, separate by the material. You could also reach out to the developer and see if he could make a feature to do that.

[@Simon-nu8km]

I have 1 Object with Multiple Materials, can I get out of these few materials in total 1 Material that includes all of the other materials with the right mapping? Sry, I'm a newbie

[@AlexPearce3d]

It is possible. I think one way you can do it, is to separate the model by material, then bake those together and join by material. So for example, if you have 1 object and 3 materials, you can press tab to go into edit mode, A to select all vertices, then alt+p then separate by material. Press tab to go back to object mode and you should have 3 separate objects. Then follow this video to bake those three to one object. Hopefully that helps!

[@mikethecreator9858]

I have a question will these bake multiple image textures that are applied to one object only?

[@AlexPearce3d]

You don't have to bake multiple image textures to one object, you can use Simplebake to bake pbr or specials maps as well as just do the "normal" baking functions. Does that answer your question?

[@mikethecreator9858]

@@AlexPearce3d 100% yes, I bought the addon and it works like a charm

[@AlexPearce3d]

Great!

[@jeffk6686]

Having an issue with Simple Bake. I have several materials and one png image (3000x2000). Before the bake it is very crisp. After it is blurred. The bake is set to 4K. I would attach images if I could. Thanks for any help.

[@AlexPearce3d]

You are baking several materials to one, or baking a procedurally created material? If so, your texel density is probably too low. For example if you have a ground plane, that's really large, if it's created procedurally it will look crisp, but if you bake it, even at 4k,it might be spread too far. Can you tell me more or yeah maybe share your orije t or something?

[@jeffk6686]

@@AlexPearce3d It's just a couple of PC monitors with a png of the screen. I'd be happy to share the files with you. I'm not sure how to do that here.

[@AlexPearce3d]

Easiest way for me is for you to post a dropbox/google drive link here or contact me through my Discord server, discord.gg/6nKTqeQe I'm a little busy, but if I can help I will, even if it's pointing you in the right direction.

[@megablueman]

When I create a Texture atlas it comes out incredibly dark and low quality, what am I doing wrong?

[@AlexPearce3d]

Can you give me more information? Like are you using simplebake and if so, are you doing pbr? What maps are you baking? Quality being low is most likely too low resolution. Try using 4k and see if the quality is good. It has to do with texel density, so if you have a very large model, you may want to keep it in several smaller textures instead of one huge one (if you are targeting mobile or web game).

[@SamTurboV]

my normal bake is blue one I combine objects to one map. Don't know whats up

[@UnPr1med]

Does this only bake materials, or lighting / ao / etc. also? Edit: Just saw your next video on baking lighting. You mention at the beginning that you're doing it without Simple Bake-can it also be done with? I'm looking for a Blender to Babylon JS workflow, but have only been using Blender for a couple of weeks now and finding the baking process a bit of a minefield-getting very mixed results, pretty much all rubbish!

[@AlexPearce3d]

Thanks for the comment. Yes, especially baking lighting in Blender can be a huge pain, I've been doing a ton of research on this for a while, but especially over the last month. This particular video shows basically baking maps for a pbr workflow, it sounds like you need to be baking a "Combined Pass", which takes into account everything from lighting, reflections, normals, etc. You can do it with Blender Cycles, and you can also do it using SimpleBake, using the latest version of simplebake allows you to bake in the background AND denoise the textures, which is really helpful because even on a high end computer, it can take a hour to bake a combined pass to 1 texture at 512 samples, so the more you can get away with in Denoising, the more you can save yourself time. Does this sort of answer your question? Did my other video help you workout your workflow? I'm thinking of making an updated baking series, because I've learned a lot since i made these even, let me know if there's anything specific you want to see.

[@UnPr1med]

@@AlexPearce3d Thanks for the detailed reply. Yes, looking for a PBR workflow. Have had a go with combined Cycles bake-but not brilliant results. Perhaps need to try some different settings. Was weighing up either Simple Bake or Bake Tool... Went with Bake Tool in the end, but have had NO success with it-it just hangs at 0% processing! Again, could be some settings adjustments required-might get in touch with the developers. Might give Simple Bake a try as an alternative. Will definitely keep an eye on your content for any more making info. Cheers

[@AlexPearce3d]

I have all the bake addons, and SimpleBake is definitely my favorite. I also can't get BakeTool to work, I had the same issue as you (and I've tried different versions of the addon, different versions of Blender etc.). You should ask for a refund and tell them the issue you're having, in case they don't know. I'll try to do that one day as well. Simple bake is the easiest and has some of the best options (like copy and hide your old objects, so you always have the original). Bake wrangler is also a great tool, especially if you have a really complicated batch that you need to do. You can do it just using Blender, but honestly I don't recommend it, way too much manual setup and it's easy to not save your images or overwrite one. So, just so i'm clear, do you want to bake your lighting into the texture? So that, for instance, you don't need to use lights at all (and of course have highest performance that way)?

[@UnPr1med]

@@AlexPearce3d Will probably use real lights also-or at least an HDRI environment. The big thing I'm looking to address is shadows / ambient occlusion-everything comes into Babylon looking really flat, and the built in lighting really only gives highlights / spec. You can add shadows (although I've not properly worked out how to best implement them) and screen space ao, but don't look brilliant. So, ultimately, yes, looking to bake lighting in to improve the look-and obviously performance also, as a result.

[@AlexPearce3d]

@@UnPr1med got it. Yeah then you probably want to bake using a combined pass, just make sure to uncheck glossy. If you can use the same hdri to light it in blender, then you could probably get more realistic results. Are you exporting gltf for Babylon?

[@jorgenascimento218]

where can i finde simplebake add-on?

[@AlexPearce3d]

Blender market. Thanks for asking I will try to find the link and put it in the description

[@AlexPearce3d]

blendermarket.com/products/simplebake---simple-pbr-and-other-baking-in-blender-2

[@delta22ization]

do you have to be in cycles?

[@AlexPearce3d]

Yes

[@risingforce9648]

nice fore performance, but lose so many texel density and the capability to scale uv are limited to the 0-1 uv's space

[@AlexPearce3d]

Yeah for sure, depends on what you're doing

[@TheHumppaidiootti]

How is texel density handled?

[@AlexPearce3d]

Simplebake doesn't have any texel density tools, there is a good addon called texel density checker that you can use to measure the texel density.

[@TheHumppaidiootti]

@@AlexPearce3d If it is used with multiple textured materials, how is it going to scale them in relation to eachother?

[@AlexPearce3d]

@@TheHumppaidiootti If i understand what you asking, then this is my answer. You can’t have overlapping Uvs, so if you have an aircraft that both wings share the same uvs, then you’ll have to either pack them so that they are not overlapping, or bake them as separate objects (which would be two different textures). Is that your question and does that answer it?

[@feroalexperow6810]

I have too many textures. When combining them, their quality and texture are lost. What can I do? I have too many textures. When combining them, their quality and texture are lost. What can I do?

[@AlexPearce3d]

Instead of trying to combine all of them, maybe just combine a few at a time? If they are just solid colors, you can make them take up just a few pixels of the uv maps. And higher resolution maps will give you higher texel density (less blurry), but if course you probably can't go higher than 4k if you're going to mobile devices.

[@feroalexperow6810]

@@AlexPearce3d As you said, we tried to combine some of them one by one, this time the textures are a bit mixed. Is there an address where we can reach you? like discord?

[@AlexPearce3d]

Yes, my discord channel is listed in the descriptions of my recent KZbin videos. Or at the bottom of blenderender.com sorry I'd post it here but I am busy at the moment.

[@paulojonathan3161]

What about the normals

[@AlexPearce3d]

Yes! And there is a box to "bake selected objects to target object"

[@peacemaker4real]

how to do an entire scene? like 30 objects, with 30 materials/texure jps/npg's? sry noob here to. I made aan elefant out of sticks(low poly sticks) ; I try joining all the sticks by material...All is: 33000 faces...is this even possible?

[@AlexPearce3d]

It is possible. Sometimes I find it best to join a few at a time and then join those together. Have you been able to join any yet?

[@peacemaker4real]

@@AlexPearce3d yes, thx, yeah did 3-4 on one higher res. Thx now I have some lines where to see polygons. Tryed to make more margin, but I shoulda also high2low baked.