A short overview of the addon's capabilities, and its main features.

What is Auto Bake?

Auto Bake is designed to eliminate the tedious and annoying manual tasks typically required for baking and exporting textures. Auto Bake is designed to automate the texture baking and saving process while providing complete control at every step.

Auto Bake allows you to create a bake list representing the textures that will be baked. This list can contain any number of items.

Click on the bake button, and let the addon take care of the rest. The textures will be automatically baked and exported (if it’s set to do so) one by one.

Each item in the list have a texture type and size. The texture type can be any of the default Blender bake types, multiresolution data of the Multiresolution modifier, and all the input sockets of the Principled BSDF node. The texture size can range from the minimum scale value of 1 to a maximum scale of 65536, as allowed by Blender.

Take a look at how Auto Bake looks in action!

Detailed description of all the elements and functionalities of the addon.

Bake Queue

The main panel holds all the bake control buttons along with the bake queue list. At its default state, it has two buttons:

• Auto Bake: Starts the baking process.
• Export: Exports the unsaved textures from the previous bakes.

Next to the “Export” button there is a checkbox, if it’s checked in the baked textures will automatically exported to the set export path.

*The “Export” button can only be used when there is unsaved baked texture.

Bake

After clicking on the “Auto Bake” button, it will be replaced by a “Pause“ and a “Cancel“ button along with the “Export” button and its checkbox.
A bake queue list will also be added below the new buttons with a queue status bar. The status bar shows the amount of items has been completed.

*The queue list and its items are independent of the bake list. Modifying the bake list won’t make any changes to the queue list.

The textures will be baked one by one. Their status will change depending on their current state.

Bake Status

• Pending: On queue, waiting to be baked (default state).
• Baking: Currently baked.
• Baked: Successfully baked.
• Exported: Successfully baked and exported.
• Failed: Failed to bake.
• Canceled: Canceled by the user.

Pause

The bake queue can be paused anytime with the “Pause” button. If there is an active bake at the time of the pause, the current bake will be finished and won’t be canceled (it will also be also exported if it's set to).

Resume

Resume the bakes from the pause anytime by clicking on the “Resume“ button. The bake queue will continue right where it was stopped.

Cancel

Items in the queue list can be canceled using the “Cancel“ button. Their status will change from “Pending“ to “Canceled”. If there is a current bake in progress (an item with the “Baking“ status) it won’t be canceled, only the items with a status of “Pending“.

Results

The bake queue is finished when there is no item left with a “Pending“ status. The queue status bar will disappear and a “Confirm“ button will appear below the list. On click this button will hide itself along with the list, restoring the initial state of the panel.

Disable Items

Items in the queue list with a status of “Pending“ can be disabled. The status will change to “Canceled”. This means it won’t bake. Until the canceled item is not passed in the queue list, it can be re-enabled, the status will change back to “Pending“.

Export

After the bake queue is finished and the textures are not set to export automatically, they can still be exported with the “Export“ button. When the button is clicked on, a popup window will appear.

In this window all the unsaved baked textures are listed. They can also be renamed if any of it requires edit. Textures can be excluded from the export with the checkbox next to their name. On confirming the bake the disabled items will also be removed from the list.

Bake List

Bake List is the panel where you make the list of what to bake.
*Enabled bake item count is displayed in the panel name: “Bake List (4)”

Bake Items

The main component is the list. Each item in the list has three basic properties:

• Type: Define what to bake. Types can be separated into three main groups:

  

  • Principled BSDF: All the input sockets of the Principled BSDF node, and an additional composite type that can combine up to three Principled BSDF float (gray socket) inputs.
  • Multiresolution: Normals and Displacement data from the Multiresolution modifier.
  • Standard: All the default bake types Blender offers.

• Size: Scale of the texture, with a range between 1 and 65536.
• Gate: Items can be disabled, which means they will be ignored in the bake queue without deleting the item itself.

  

*Items that share the same type and scale are marked as duplicated and displayed in a reddish color.

Type Specific

Other than the three main item components (type, scale, gate), there are type specific settings. The first, that every type has is the name. This is an editable text property, which will be used when creating and exporting the texture.
Additionally some items have more settings related to their type. Such as: ambient occlusion, displacement, combined, normal, composite, etc.

List Operators

Use the + button to add an item to the list. Hold CTRL to add multiple items at once using the pop-up window.

Use the - button to remove an item from the list. Hold CTRL to remove multiple items at once using the pop-up window. Choose from removing all, the duplicated, or the disabled items.

Use the Up and Down buttons to move the items. Hold CTRL to move the active item to the top or to the bottom of the list.

Use the dropdown menu to access additional list modifier operators.

• Load by Linked: Load items from the selected source material. From the material’s Principled BSDF node’s connected input sockets items will be added with the sockets corresponding type to the list with the set scale value.

  

• Selected to Top: Move the active item to the top of the list.
• Selected to Bottom: Move the active item to the bottom of the list.
• Enable All: Enable every item in the list.
• Disable All: Disable every item in the list.
• Invert All: Invert the Gate value for every item in the list.
• Clear List: Remove every item from the list.
• Remove Duplicated: Remove all the duplicated items from the list.
• Remove Disabled: Remove all the disabled items from the list.
• Item Details: Visibility of additional type specific details (read more below)
• Sort Items: Sort the items in the list. Frist by type, and then by scale in ascending order.
• UDIM Bake: Switch between UDIM and Single texture bakes.

UDIM

When working in UDIM mode, almost everything in the Bake List works the same and looks the same. The only difference is in the Bake List items' scale value. More about in the “Bake List” section below_._
Also, there is an additional sub-panel for the UDIM tiles, right below the main list, this is only visible when the “UDIM Bake” option is checked in.

Bake List

The only change in this list is the items' size. Instead of setting the texture’s scale for each item, here it’s multiplier value for the UDIM tile sizes. If a multiplier value set to 2 instead of the default 1, each tile will be created at double the size of the set in the Tile List (original tile size * type multiplier).

Tile List

Make a list of UDIM tiles that will be used for every item in the Bake List, hence every baked texture.

*Duplicated tiles are marked with a reddish color.

Each UDIM Tile item has two main properties:

• Tile Number: UDIM tile number.
• Tile Scale: Image tile size.

Additionally tile labels can be turned on, so each tile can be named in the list, helping keep track of them.

Tile List Operators

Use the + button to add an item to the list. Hold CTRL to add multiple items at once using the pop-up window.

Use the - button to remove an item from the list. Hold CTRL to remove multiple items at once using the pop-up window. Choose from removing all, the duplicated, or the disabled items.

Use the Up and Down buttons to move the items. Hold CTRL to move the active item to the top or to the bottom of the list.

Use the dropdown menu to access additional list modifier operators.

• Load Tiles: Load the UDIM tiles from the selected UDIM image.

  

• Selected to Top: Move the active item to the top of the list.
• Selected to Bottom: Move the active item to the bottom of the list.
• Enable All: Enable every item in the list.
• Disable All: Disable every item in the list.
• Invert All: Invert the Gate value for every item in the list.
• Clear List: Remove every item from the list.
• Remove Duplicated: Remove all the duplicated items from the list.
• Remove Disabled: Remove all the disabled items from the list.
• Tile Label: Enable labels for the UDIM tiles.
• Sort Items: Sort the items in the list by UDIM tile number in ascending order.

Image

The Image panel is where you can customize how your image textures will be named and exported.

Name

Every texture creation begins with setting the name. This panel allows you to control how your textures will be named.
The image texture's name will be created based on the following form:

Prefix + Bake Type Name + Bridge + Texture Size + Suffix

• Prefix: This field allows you to add custom text before the texture type. If left empty, the prefix will be the active object’s name. For no prefix, use double apostrophes ('') or double quotation marks ("").
• Bridge: Custom text to be placed between the texture type and scale. Leave it empty for no bridge text.
• Suffix: Custom suffix to be added after the texture scale. Leave it empty for no suffix.
• Force Name: Use the texture name even if there is already an image with the same name. The other image will be renamed to prevent naming conflicts.

Name Structure
You can also edit the name structure, which will be used as the form to create the texture names. To open the structure editor (like the image below), click on the pen icon, which is next to the panel name.

You can also edit the name structure form, which will be used to create the texture names. To open the structure editor (as shown in the image below), click on the pen icon next to the panel name.

Here, you can fully customize your texture names for both single and UDIM textures. You can switch up the elements, remove them, or add simple text to it.

Format

Image file format settings for creating and exporting the image textures.

• File Format: File extension to use when saving the image.

  

• Use Float: Create images with 32-bit floating-point bit depth.
• Color Depth: Bit depth per channel.
• Compression: Compression amount to use when saving the image.

*Based on the selected file format, other corresponding default Blender image settings may appear or disappear.

Export

• File Path: File path to use when exporting the textures. At the given location, a folder will be created with a name using the prefix used by the textures. This folder will be used to save all the images.
• Subfolders: In the main export folder, other subfolders will be created. Each bake type will be saved into its own subfolder.
• Color Override: Color management settings for the exported textures.

Settings

Adjust all the bake related settings that are commonly applied to all bake types. This panel includes the margin, selected to active and influence settings.

Margin

Default margin settings, adjust the size and the margin type.

Selected to Active

Default bake settings for source to target bakes, along with an additional 'Selection Helper' sub-panel, which assists in selecting objects if needed.

Sampling

Specify relevant sampling settings for bakes, including sample counts and denoising.

Addon

Control various aspects of the addon's functionality, primarily consisting of quality-of-life options with a few exceptions.

Lists

Access all the various list-related settings, including those for the bake lists, queue list, and image export list.

• New Items: Select how to add new bake items to the list:
  • Simple: Add items one at a time.
  • Complex: Add set amount of items, while controlling their scale.

    

• UDIM Items: Allow in-line edits for items' properties in the UDIM lists. Or disable the default item property editor below the list.

  

• Bake Items: Allow in-line edits for items' properties in the Bake (non-UDIM) list. Or disable the default item property editor below the list.

  

• Dynamic Scale: Dynamically set all the new bake (both UDIM and non-UDIM) items' texture size based on the previous items.
  • False: The new item gets the previous’s value.
  • Enabled: New item’s scale is based on the previous two.
  • Enabled+: New item’s scale is based on the previous three items.
• Finished Bake: Automatically move the finished bake item (in the queue list) to the bottom of the list.

  

• Active Bake: Automatically move the active bake item to the top of the (bake queue) list.

  

• Export List: When starting a new bake session, determine how to handle non-exported images from the previous session.
  • Ask before every bake what to do with the unsaved images.
  • Clear the unsaved images from the list before every bake sessions.
  • Keep the unsaved images in the list throughout bake sessions.

*Default queue behavior when both Active Bake and Finished Bake are off.

Shader Editor

Choose how to handle the Image Texture nodes created for the bakes after the bake is finished.

• Image Textures: Set whether to keep or remove the created image texture nodes from the materials of the target object after the bake.
• Node Tiling: Select how to place the image texture nodes in the materials of the target object.
  • Off: Place them at the same location
  • Grid: Use a grid-tile system to place them
  • Single Row: Place all of them into a single row
  • Row By Type: Place each of them into its own row by type
  • Row By Type+: Place each of them into its own row by type. Additionally, if a type has only one item, those single items will be combined into an additional row instead of using different rows.

Textures

Use fake users for the baked textures or apply scaled-anti-aliasing.

• Fake User: Use fake user for the baked texture images.
• Anti-aliasing: Apply scaled-anti-aliasing for the baked textures.
  • Off: No anti-aliasing will be applied to the textures.
  • Upscaled: The texture will be created and baked at a higher resolution (original texture size multiplied by the upscale value), which will likely extend the bake time depending on your system. After the bake is completed, it will be scaled back down to its original size. Using 200% is equivalent to 2x anti-aliasing.

    

  • Downscaled: After the bake, the texture will be scaled down to the specified percentage and then scaled back to its original size. This operation can be repeated a specified number of times using the Iteration value.

    

• Color Space: Set what color space should different type of textures use when they are created.

  

Miscellaneous

This panel holds different type of properties, including alerts, confirmations of certain actions, etc.

• Text Alerts: Turn off alerts at certain parts of the addon. This includes red explanatory texts that indicate when something goes wrong, such as failed bakes or incorrect settings.
• Confirm Windows: Actions like starting and stopping the bakes have popup confirm windows. These can be turned off here.
  *These windows also can be skipped by using CTRL+Click.
• Subfolder Name: Control the subfolders' names. Enabling this setting will include the prefix in the subfolders' names. Otherwise, the subfolder will be named using only the type.

Check out the addon's public roadmap on Trello for upcoming features, bug fixes and more!

Join to the discord server and open a ticket. Choose from three ticket categories:

• Bug: Report any issue with the addon
• Feature Request: Tell what would you like see being added next
• Question: Ask the questions that you couldn't find the answer to

After you chose the ticket type you will be assigned to a new text channel ("ticket-38" in this case) where you can address your report.