Baking Hdri image into an object to be used is scene without lights or HRMI

[Darby Edelen]

It looks like you’re using “Bake Object…” which does not allow you to bake many of the material channels (including reflection). You should use the “Bake Texture…” function/tag instead.

Darby Edelen

[Adam Trachtenberg]

That seems to be correct. Cinema’s texture baking is confusing. After playing around with various settings in the bake texture tag, it appears that you JUST want to check the “surface color” box, which will bake lights, shadows, GI, and reflections. Hard to pick that up from the help file, which states, “The surface color contains the effects of numerous material channels, including Illumination, GI (see also Bake Object ) and cast shadows (not including Reflection, Transparency, Fog or Glow).”

Later in the help file section it says that reflections will be added automatically and that the reflection channel does not have to be checked?

[William Drescher]

Adam:

I went down that road early.. Though the “preview” shows me the right image. when baked, I get black.

…but then again.. who does?

[Adam Trachtenberg]

Huh … it works here. But I think you need to check the “use camera vector” box, and also set a texture path — not just type in a name. I also have the “single file” box checked … not sure if that has anything to do with it.

[Darby Edelen]

[Adam Trachtenberg] “Huh … it works here. But I think you need to check the “use camera vector” box, and also set a texture path — not just type in a name. I also have the “single file” box checked … not sure if that has anything to do with it.”

I was testing with only the Reflection channel selected in the Bake Texture tag.

If you do not check “Use Camera Vector” then the baked texture can be used in the Environment channel for a ‘live’ reflection (that responds if the camera is moved). If you do check the “Use Camera Vector” box then the baked texture can be placed in the luminance channel and will match the perspective from the active camera when it was baked only (if you use another camera or move the camera the reflection is stuck to the surface).

Darby Edelen

[William Drescher]

Tried the Camera Vector check as well. Still get a good preview, but an all back image.

I wrote the folks at greyscale gorrila see if them have an idea.

..I’m a fan of NZ Rubgy, but not in my texture.

…but then again.. who does?

[Darby Edelen]

The preview will look correct no matter which channels you have checked in the Bake Texture tag. I’d consider that a bug but it’s likely because its showing a composite of all the channels (even unchecked ones).

The Surface Color channel does not bake reflections in my experience (and according to the documentation), you need to check the Reflection channel for that.

Darby Edelen

[Bruno Depaoli]

I had the same problem. First I went to UVmap layout make a paint setup wizard. Then bake only reflection and it did work that way. I think you have to give the UV a color channel where to write the reflection. Does that make sense? Im no that sure, but it worked out

[Jan Vork]

Hi Darby,

Did you ever solve the HDRI-baking problem? I am experiencing exacly the same.
Not all reflections are reflected 🙂 in my baked reflection texture.

[Jan Vork]

Think I found the solution! At least – in my case this was the problem:
I created illuminating objects to reflect, which I gave a Compositing tag that hides them to do not appear in the render, only in the reflection. For some reaon this prevents them from appearing in the baked HDRI as well.

So the solution for me was: check the ‘Seen by Camera’ checkbox in the compositing tag.

This is a bug in my opnion, so I will report it to Maxon.

Best,
Jaydude