Basics of baking to texture

The point of this is to get the basic experience of texture baking, where we get the shadows, lighting, and other aspects ‘baked” into the material so they exist independently of lighting conditions.

Set up a little scene with one spotlight with shadows on.
The material we are using is the default gray.
Later you can try this out with a more advanced material.

Convert your model to an editable mesh.
This is essential as we are going to have to save and reload UVWs into another editable mesh later on.

With the model selected, Hit 0

Notice here we are using the automatic unwrap set to channel 3, the default setting:

Add a CompleteMap ... this will include most aspects of the map.

Specify a large enough size, here we are using 1024.

The material will be rendered to a Targa file.

Render ... this image will be saved to the destination you set earlier.

Your model will have had a new modifier automatically assigned for the UVS. Save the UVWs here.

Make sure you change from Channel 1 to Channel 3.

Export the model to a .3ds file.

Reset max and import the .3ds file to your new file.

You will notice it is an editable mesh.

Apply a Unwrap UVW modifier ...

Hit Edit you can take a look at the layout of the UVWs.

The UVWs look different..

Load the UVWs you saved earlier

The UVWs will pop into place [if you are in channel 3 and exported an editable mesh, not editable poly.]

Make a regular standard material with the baked material in the diffuse slot ... make sure you set the map channel to 3 ... here is a render with no lights on, self-illumination 100.