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avelgest / baker-node

A Blender add-on that adds a node to the Shader Editor which can bake its input to an image, vertex attribute or sculpt mask with one click.
GNU General Public License v2.0
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Missing output sockets #3

Open UnKabaraQuiDev opened 11 months ago

UnKabaraQuiDev commented 11 months ago

Why is is there a color and alpha output when baking to a image (UV) or to a Color Attribute but not when baking to a Image (Plane) ?

Suggestion: Add output sockets on Image (Plane)

avelgest commented 11 months ago

There are output sockets for bakers with the Image (UV) and Color Attribute targets because their outputs are roughly the same as their inputs when seen in the 3D viewport, so a baker node can essentially be used as a cache for the results of expensive parts of the shader. On the other hand the output when using Image (Plane) is usually very different from the input when seen in the 3D viewport, since it bakes to a temporary plane and ignores the geometry/UVs of the active object. Consequently, not only can the node not be used for caching, but the viewport would display a very inaccurate idea of the bake result.

I'd recommend using an Image Texture node when using the results of an Image (Plane) bake in a shader. Both for the better control of coordinates and the different projection modes. I think older versions of the add-on did have an output for Image (Plane), but since it was inconsistent with the other modes, very limited compared to using an Image Texture node, and the primary use case for Image (Plane) was to create textures for brushes or box projection, it was removed.

If output sockets for Image (Plane) still seem useful then I could add an option in the add-on preferences to enable them.