Mesh Input Nodes

These nodes describe what to bake from — they take object inputs (via Target, Source, and Scene sockets, described in Quick Start) plus a Mesh Settings socket, and output a single Mesh socket that plugs into a Bake Pass.

All four share a View From control: bake ray origins are cast either from just above the surface, or from a chosen camera’s position (useful for baking billboards or camera projections).

Input Mesh

The general-purpose node for baking one or more target objects, optionally from one or more source objects, with optional scene lighting objects. This is the node most recipes use.

Expanding Join + Explode & Auto Sort reveals:

  • Auto Sort — automatically pair targets to sources/scenes by name, instead of relying purely on what’s wired into the Target/Source/Scene sockets. See Auto Sort, Join & Explode, and Auto Cage.

  • Join Targets / Join Sources — combines all connected targets (or sources) into one mesh before baking.

  • Explode — when Join Targets is on, temporarily separates objects by an offset before joining, so overlapping geometry doesn’t interfere with the bake. Includes a live Preview mode (toggle with the button, exit with Esc) that draws the exploded layout in the 3D viewport without touching your actual objects — press O to show/hide the real objects, L to toggle offset lines, and N to toggle name labels while previewing.

Input UV Transfer

Bakes from one UV map to a different UV map on the same object(s) — for example, baking a hand-authored high-detail UV layout down onto a simpler UV set used for export. Requires both a Source UV (active, or a specifically named map) and a Target UV map name. Scene here is used to pick collections that contribute lighting/shadowing, since there is no separate source object.

Input Material

Bakes a material’s shader output onto a flat plane of a given Width and Height, independent of any specific mesh — useful for previewing or exporting a material as a standalone texture. Feed it either a Material directly, or an Objects socket, in which case every material found across those objects’ material slots is baked. Duplicate materials are automatically pruned from the list.

Input Billboard

Bakes a Target object as seen from a camera or from directly above, onto that billboard geometry — useful for impostor/billboard texture generation. Has an Alpha Bounces setting controlling how many times a ray may pass through transparent surfaces before giving up, which matters for billboards made of layered transparent cards.