Remapping and Baking

Blender's Cycles rendering engine allows any material to be baked to any UV map. This allows remapping, vertex painting, generative materials, and more to be rendered to a mapping that works in game. Follow the steps in one of the subsections under "Create a new material", then the steps in "Bake"

It is recommended that you follow the Preparation tutorial or open this start file for Blender 2.80 and later, then import your OBJ before continuing with this tutorial.

Remapping is creating a new UV map. This allows removing discontinuities or changing/removing warping/curling/nonlinearity that exist in the template.

1. With the 3D object to be remapped selected, in the properties panel, Data tab, press the plus icon in the UV Maps section to create a new UV map.
2. Press tab to switch to edit mode. Press u to bring up the unwrap menu.
   1. One simple and useful remap is to use a standard viewport (numpad numbers), ortho view (numpad 5 toggles) and project from view in the unwrap menu.
   2. Another is to select an area that is discontinuous or warped on the template, alt M (blender 2.80: select by distance) to merge duplicate vertices, and unwrap from the unwrap menu
   3. For other unwrapping methods, there are many existing tutorials that cover UV mapping in more detail
3. Before following the steps in Bake, select the first UV map from the properties panel, Data tab
4. switch to the UV/Image Editor (2.79) or UV Editor (2.80) from the drop-down icon in the corner of the 3D view
5. Press a to select all
6. In the UVs menu, select Export UV Layout
7. Set the file name, size, format, and fill opacity as desired, and press Export UV Layout
8. Create a texture using the exported UV layout as a template, as you would a livery using the standard template

1. If you are using blender 2.79 or earlier, make sure you are using the Cycles Render engine (drop down menu at the top of the window)
2. in the properties panel, Material tab, press the plus (2.79) or two pages (2.80) in the material selection drop-down to create a new material.
3. Switch to the node editor (2.79) or Shader Editor (2.80) using the drop-down icon in the corner of the 3D view.
4. Create the material shown (instructions below)
   1. If any unneeded nodes are present, select them (click for single select or press b to box select) and press delete
   2. Select from the menus add > texture > image texture and click to place
   3. Press Shift-D to duplicate the image texture node and click to place
   4. Select from the menus add > input > UV Map and click to place
   5. Select from the menus add > shader > emission (any shader that takes a color input can be used, but emission makes baking faster) and click to place
   6. click and drag from circle to circle as shown
   7. Select the new UV map in the UV Map text area
   8. click open on the image texture that is connected to the UV Map and Emission
   9. click new on the image texture that is not connected to other nodes; set the name, width and height; click OK
   10. Make sure the disconnected image texture is selected (this makes it the target of the texture bake)

For any other materials, just add a disconnected image texture as the texture bake target

1. Switch to the node editor (2.79) or Shader Editor (2.80) using the drop-down icon in the corner of the 3D view.
   1. Select from the menus add > texture > image texture and click to place
   2. click new on this image texture; set the name, width and height; click OK
   3. Make sure this image texture is selected (this makes it the target of the texture bake)

Once you have a material with a disconnected image texture selected

1. Select the properties panel, Render tab
2. If you are using Blender 2.80 or later, select Cycles from the Render Engine drop-down
3. In the Bake section, set the Bake Type to Emit (unless you are using a material that uses shaders incompatible with this render type, in which case select the matching type or Combined)
4. Press Bake
5. Switch to the UV/Image Editor (2.79) or Image Editor (2.80)
6. Select the image from the selected and disconnected image texture
7. In the Image menu, select Save, Save as.. or Save as Image
8. Select a location and file name, then click Save