SimpleBake Release Notes

Version 2.9.5 9 August 2026

CHANGE - New installs now use tickboxes rather than toggles for SimpleBake panel option controls by default, as they make the panel clearer and are probably the better default option for new users.
ENHANCEMENT - MonkeyTips now open in a message box, so the SimpleBake panel no longer jumps around when tips are viewed.

Version 2.9.3 8 August 2026

ENHANCEMENT - Copy objects and apply bakes now includes an optional Disable in Viewports source-object control, equivalent to Blender's Outliner monitor icon, so baked source objects can be removed from viewport evaluation after baking.

Version 2.9.2 8 August 2026

NEW - Added a UV Grid preview button to the UV settings section. This temporarily applies Blender's generated UV grid texture to all bake objects, making it easier to spot stretched, rotated, mirrored, or unevenly scaled UVs before baking.

Version 2.9.1 8 August 2026

NEW - Added Background bake scheduling controls to the Background bakes panel, allowing background bakes to run one at a time, up to a chosen simultaneous limit, or immediately without queueing. This lets users make better use of their CPU/GPU according to their own hardware and workflow; on capable PCs, running more background bakes at once can speed up overall baking.
ENHANCEMENT - Background bake progress now tracks all active background bakes, and changing the scheduling mode can start queued bakes immediately when capacity is available.

Version 2.9.0 8 August 2026

ENHANCEMENT - Copy objects and apply bakes now has separate source object visibility controls for the viewport eye icon and render camera icon.
ENHANCEMENT - Background Copy and Apply bakes now remember the chosen baked object collection when the bake starts, then import baked objects into that stored collection even if the panel setting is changed before import.
BUGFIX - Fixed background Copy and Apply imports when using a custom baked object collection, and removed the unwanted empty Appended Data collection left behind after import.

Version 2.8.9 8 August 2026

NEW - Added a Check UVs button to the UV settings panel, reporting common bake UV problems such as missing UV maps, collapsed UVs, UVs outside 0-1 space, and possible overlapping UV faces.
ENHANCEMENT - Tidied the UV settings panel so the selected bake UV list, UDIM tile count, refresh action, Set all control, and Check UVs action are grouped more clearly.

Version 2.8.8 7 August 2026

ENHANCEMENT - Added a configurable collection setting for Copy objects and apply bakes, allowing baked object copies to be placed in an existing collection or a newly named collection instead of always using SimpleBake_Bakes.

Version 2.8.7 6 August 2026

BUGFIX - Channel-packed texture filenames now use the same image naming logic as other baked textures, so the Abbreviate resolution preference is honoured.

Version 2.8.6 28 July 2026

BUGFIX - Fixed a possible issue when using Auto Match with multiple PBR bake types and multiple objects to one texture set. Some later bake types could be scaled to the output resolution too early, making them appear as if they had ignored the Bake at setting and causing oversized bake margins.

Version 2.8.5 20 July 2026

ENHANCEMENT - Updated SimpleBake's default colour-space selections for Blender 5.2 and above, so colour and non-colour textures use the correct Blender 5.2 colour-space entries.

Version 2.8.4 21 June 2026

BUGFIX - Fixed a potential activation crash on systems where Blender exposes a different colour-space list. SimpleBake now checks that its preferred colour-space indices exist, then falls back to matching common colour and non-colour space names before using a safe default.

Version 2.8.3 8 June 2026

BUGFIX - Fixed a crash in Copy and Apply when "Apply bakes to original" is enabled and an existing merged material is found. The material is now returned without attempting to assign it to a (non-existent) new object.
BUGFIX - Fixed a crash in the UV list panel when an object in the bake list has been deleted or renamed. The UV layer lookup is now guarded against a missing object.

Version 2.8.2 3 June 2026

NEW - Smart UV Project now exposes Angle Limit, Area Weight, and Scale to Bounds controls in the UV section of the bake panel.
ENHANCEMENT - Menu Switch selections set on a node group are now preserved when the group is unpacked for baking. Previously, ungrouping a node group containing a Menu Switch lost the chosen menu option and reverted to the Menu Switch's internal default.

Version 2.8.1 28 May 2026

BUGFIX - Auto-generate cage is now disabled when the target object is hidden in the viewport, preventing a Blender crash and showing a clearer tooltip.

Version 2.8.0 27 May 2026

NEW - Node Bake panel in the Shader Editor (SimpleBake tab). Select any node, choose an output socket, set resolution, and bake directly to an image texture. Optionally replaces the socket with a wired Image Texture node after baking.

Version 2.7.9 26 May 2026

BUGFIX - Fixed material preparation for PBR bakes where a valid surface Principled BSDF exists alongside additional linked Principled nodes in the same material.

Version 2.7.6 25 May 2026

BUGFIX - Bake to target now temporarily makes the target object visible, selectable, and render-visible before baking, instead of stopping when those object flags are off. These target object settings are restored after the bake.
BUGFIX - Improved Object Mode handling before baking to avoid a possible crash when Blender has no active object.
BUGFIX - Texture Per Material exports now create nested object/material folders correctly when Export Folder Per Object is enabled.

Version 2.7.5 4 May 2026

NEW - Added a TGA RAW option for channel packed textures, allowing uncompressed TGA output from channel packing.

Version 2.7.4 4 May 2026

NEW - Added "Capitalise file extensions on export" option in addon preferences. When enabled, exported images (including channel-packed textures) use uppercase file extensions (e.g. .PNG instead of .png)

Version 2.7.3 30 April 2026

NEW - Added "Replace previous bakes" option under Other Settings. When enabled (default), baking replaces any existing images with the same name. When disabled, new bakes always produce uniquely-named images, preserving previous bakes

Version 2.7.2 20 April 2026

NEW - Added "Output BW maps as RGB" option under Other Settings. When enabled, bake types that would normally be saved as single-channel greyscale (BW) images are saved as RGB instead

Version 2.7.0 17 April 2026

CHANGE - Important if you use image sequence baking: You will need to recreate and resave your presets created in older versions of SimpleBake, as the settings related to image sequence have changed.
BUGFIX - Image sequence bakes no longer crash when used with Copy and Apply.
BUGFIX - The "bake complete" popup no longer appears after a failed image sequence bake.
NEW - Specials bakes (AO, Curvature, Thickness, Lightmap, Colour ID, Vertex Colour) now support Texture Per Material mode. Each material gets its own specials texture, preventing scrambled results when materials have overlapping UVs.

Version 2.6.9 9 April 2026

BUGFIX - Export Mesh now requires Export Bakes to be enabled. This prevents a crash when baking UDIM textures, as mesh exporters require baked images to be saved to disk first.

Version 2.6.8 9 April 2026

BUGFIX - Auto Detect UDIMs is now visible and configurable when Texture Per Material is enabled.

Version 2.6.7 9 April 2026

NEW - Copy Objects and Apply Bakes now works with Texture Per Material. Each material slot on the copy object receives its own baked material, with face assignments preserved correctly.

Version 2.6.6 8 April 2026

BUGFIX - Fixed an error when baking Specials (e.g. Thickness) on multi-material objects with Texture Per Material enabled.

Version 2.6.5 8 April 2026

BUGFIX - Fixed an error when baking Normal maps or Specials on multi-material objects with Texture Per Material enabled.

Version 2.6.4 7 April 2026

BUGFIX - Fixed proxy object and render visibility not being cleaned up in the foreground scene when baking in the background with "Join Bake Objects to Proxy" enabled.

Version 2.6.3 7 April 2026

BUGFIX - Fixed garbled bakes and incorrect UV map restoration when using "Join Bake Objects to Proxy".
BUGFIX - Fixed active render UV map not being correctly restored after baking.

Version 2.6.2 7 April 2026

BUGFIX - Fixed UV map active edit and active render (camera icon) not being correctly restored after baking when "Restore Original UV Map" is enabled. Both are now restored from the per-object state captured before the bake, rather than from the panel snapshot, ensuring objects with non-default active UV maps are handled correctly.

Version 2.6.1 6 April 2026

BUGFIX - Fixed incorrect bl_idname on the Decals bake operators (SimpleBake_OT_Decals_Operation and SimpleBake_OT_Decals_Operation_Background), which caused the Bake button to disappear from the panel.

Version 2.6.0 10 March 2026

Big update. Potential for bugs is high. Roll back to the previous version if you encounter issues
NEW - Per-material baking: a new Materials section in the panel lets you expand each object and enable or disable individual materials from baking. Great for complex multi-material objects where you only need to bake some materials.
NEW - Per-material UV expansion: when baking per material, you can now expand each material's UVs to fill the full 0–1 UV space for the bake, maximising texture resolution per material.
NEW - Channel packing now supports per-material textures, so packed textures correctly draw from the right material's baked images when baking per material.
NEW - Channel packed textures can now be saved as EXR. The channel packing system has been upgraded to support float buffers and proper EXR codec settings, making it suitable for HDR and linear workflows.
NEW - Copy settings to clipboard: a new utility lets you copy all current SimpleBake settings as JSON, making it easy to transfer your setup between scenes or share configurations.
CHANGE - The legacy channel packing method has been removed. The current method is faster, more accurate, and now has full EXR support, so the old method is no longer needed.
ENHANCEMENT - Panel draw performance improved: expensive per-frame checks (modifier visibility, convertible shaders, auto-cage detection) are now cached and only recomputed when the scene changes, reducing panel overhead and improving stability when the panel is displayed in the N-panel.

Version 2.5.7 30 March 2026

BUGFIX - Fixed a crash when baking with UDIM auto-detect disabled. The image creation operator accessed total_tiles before it was initialised, causing an AttributeError and leaving bake image nodes empty.

Version 2.5.6 29 March 2026

ENHANCEMENT - UDIM tile detection has been rewritten to use numpy bulk data access instead of a per-polygon Python loop, making it significantly faster for high-poly objects. This fixes reported freezes when adding objects to the bake list and when pressing the Bake button.

Version 2.5.4 28 March 2026

BUGFIX - As reported on Discord, combining the Move new UVS to top option with Combine Existing UVs to Atlas caused SimpleBake to hang. Fixed.

Version 2.5.3 19 March 2026

CHANGE - Removed the Patreon button from user preferences. SimpleBake no longer has a Patreon.

Version 2.5.2 15 March 2026

ENHANCEMENT - Changing the UV panel layout back to the way it used to be. On reflection, the new layout didn't work as well and could be confusing.

Version 2.5.1 12 March 2026

BUGFIX - Trying to fix a bug in UDIM detection caused by the last attempt to fix a bug in UDIM detection :-()

Version 2.4.8 12 March 2026

BUGFIX - Trying to fix a Blender crash when adding extremely high poly meshes to the bake objects list.

Version 2.4.7 8 March 2026

NEW - In auto-match name mode, the objects list now shows the matched cage object (if any) in each row, giving immediate visual feedback if a cage is misnamed or missing
ENHANCEMENT - Added an "Extra Options" monkey tip in the PBR panel explaining that options are greyed out when not exporting bakes externally

Version 2.4.6 7 March 2026

ENHANCEMENT - Brought the normal bake settings (space, swizzle etc) onto the SimpleBake panel. Listed under extra options when Normal is selected for bake.

Version 2.4.5 7 March 2026

BUGFIX - Extra options for PBR bakes were hidden if bakes were not being exported, instead of just being disabled.

Version 2.4.4 7 March 2026

NEW - Preview bake types directly in the viewport. Each PBR bake type now has an eye icon button next to it. Clicking it temporarily applies a preview material to your objects so you can see exactly what that bake map will look like before committing to a full bake. A Restore button appears to return your objects to their original materials.
NEW - Specials bake types (AO, Thickness, Curvature, Lightmap) can also be previewed using their eye icon buttons in the Specials section.
CHANGE - The "Import specials materials for editing" button has been removed. You no longer need it — simply use the eye icon to preview a Specials bake type. Once in preview, you can edit the material directly in the Shader Editor (e.g. adjust curvature strength or AO distance). SimpleBake will use your edited version for all subsequent bakes of that type in the file, since it checks whether the material already exists before importing from its resources.
BUGFIX - Tooltips on bake type checkboxes were all displaying the same tooltip due to a change in Blender. Each bake type now correctly shows its own tooltip again.

Version 2.4.2 5 March 2026

Restoring the UDIM check, now based on a cache so that the updates are less expensive. Hopefully this gets rid of UI lag issues.

Version 2.4.1 5 March 2026

Temporarily reverting the new check on excessive UDIM tiles as there are reports of UI lag and I suspect this is the issue. I will find a different way to do this check.

Version 2.3.9 4 March 2026

Improved node ungrouping logic to try and reduce crashes when lots of node groups are involved.

Version 2.3.8 4 March 2026

BUGFIX - Corrected a bug in New UVs when using the "Join bake objects option"
Much improved UDIM detection logic. The previous method I was using was inaccurate and caused crashes.
Added a warning where the user is about to commence a bake with more than 10 UDIM tiles. This is often unintentional, and happens when users are not familiar with what a good UV map for baking should look like (e.g. they are trying to use a UV map that extends far beyond the UV boundaries). As well as confusing results, excessive UDIM tiles could cause Blender to run out of memory and crash during the bake.

Version 2.3.6 3 March 2026

BUGFIX - Correction to the earlier update. An empty Displacement socket in one or more materials should not prevent baking Displacement. Thanks to the user who reported this.

Version 2.3.5 3 March 2026

Improvements to try and account for Displacement nodes being inside node groups. Increased compatibility with things like Clay Doh. However, there are still edge cases that won't work as the required nodes won't be detected. I will try and improve this over time.

Version 2.3.4 2 March 2026

Small update to keep compatibility with Blender 4–4.5 for a little longer. Note that SimpleBake only officially supports Blender 5.0 and above.

Version 2.3.3 2 February 2026

Small patch to try and keep some degree of compatibility with old versions of Blender (before 5.0)

Version 2.3.2 23 January 2026

BUGFIX - "Attempt to auto-detect" will no longer reset additional settings (e.g. Rough/Glossy)

Version 2.3.1 23 January 2026

BUGFIX - Thanks to someone sharing a tip on SuperHive Market, that annoying console error message about Blender relative paths has been fixed

Version 2.3.0 16 January 2026

BUGFIX - Prevented a UnicodeDecodeError when saving the temporary panel-state preset (sanitises invalid non-UTF8 text in saved settings)

Version 2.2.9 12 January 2026

Colour space for EXR exports was wrong in some circumstances. Corrected this so it is always non-color.

Version 2.2.8 8 January 2026

Avoiding a crash reported on Discord, although yet to understand how it can actually occur.

Version 2.2.7 7 January 2026

BUGFIX - Fixing a bug related to auto-match that would cause a crash

Version 2.2.6 29 December 2025

Changed how Geo Nodes are applied during baking to see if it fixes an issue reported on Discord.

Version 2.2.5 19 December 2025

BUGFIX - Fixed a crash that could occur when baking Bump maps without the required node setup (a Bump node connected to the Normal input of all Principled BSDF nodes).

Version 2.2.4 16 December 2025

BUGFIX - Yet more bug fixes for Blender 5+!

Version 2.2.3 15 December 2025

BUGFIX - Fixing another bug that had crept in with the changes related to colour spaces

Version 2.2.2 11 December 2025

BUGFIX - Fixing a bug that had crept in with the changes related to colour spaces

Version 2.2.1 4 December 2025

Default colour spaces were wrong for Blender 5+ causing confusion for users who haven't set them manually. Updated to hopefully be correct defaults for both Blender 5+ and Blender 4+.

Version 2.2.0 1 December 2025

NEW - Initial Blender 5+ release

Version 2.1.9 10 November 2025

ENHANCEMENT - SimpleBake now dynamically retrieves available colour spaces from Blender's active OCIO configuration instead of using hard-coded values, improving compatibility with custom setups such as ACES.

Version 2.1.8 25 October 2025

ENHANCEMENT - Improved the OptiX warning message to make it clearer that OptiX baking is unstable and blocked by default, with an option to override this behaviour in the SimpleBake addon preferences.

Version 2.1.7 23 October 2025

ENHANCEMENT - Minor updates to the SimpleBake panel.

Version 2.1.6 23 October 2025

ENHANCEMENT - Small change so that errors are displayed in a box that doesn't go away unless the user presses "OK" (rather than a popup that disappears when the cursor is moved).

Version 2.1.5 9 October 2025

ENHANCEMENT - Small change to add the max length for the batch name property to the SimpleBake addon preferences (so it is user-editable rather than hard-coded). Setting this too long will cause issues on Windows with max path length, so use with caution.

Version 2.1.4 30 September 2025

ENHANCEMENT - When using "Multiple Objects to One Texture Set", you can now choose to join the bake objects together. This can significantly improve baking speed, as Blender otherwise only allows one object to be baked at a time. The drawback is that materials using "Generated" or "Object" texture coordinates may look different after joining, so the resulting bakes may not match the original material appearance. A warning has been added to the SimpleBake panel to help prevent confusion.
ENHANCEMENT - The UV section of the panel now includes a list of UV maps. You can select which UV map to use for baking or for combining into an atlas directly on the panel, making it clearer which UVs will be applied. Additional UV options may be added in future updates.

Version 2.1.3 21 September 2025

BUGFIX - Changes to allow for a custom background colour for baked textures introduced a bug for UDIMs. Now fixed.

Version 2.1.2 18 September 2025

BUGFIX - Baked images imported from a background bake will now have a fake user set in the same way as images created from a foreground bake.
ENHANCEMENT - Added an option in the SimpleBake user preferences to purge unused data blocks from the blend file after a bake. This will better "clean up" the file once baking is complete, but will purge ALL unused data, not just data created by SimpleBake — so use with caution. Disabled by default.
ENHANCEMENT - Improved unpacking of node groups to catch some input types that were being missed.
ENHANCEMENT - Added a new option to set the background colour of the baked textures (custom RGBA). Removed the "Transparent Background" option entirely as now redundant.
CHANGE - SimpleBake now prevents baking when Blender is set to use OptiX as the render device. Baking with OptiX has been buggy in Blender for years and often produces broken results. Users must switch to CUDA or CPU before proceeding. This behaviour can be overridden in the SimpleBake preferences if you really want to bake with OptiX, but it is not recommended.

Version 2.1.1 5 September 2025

BUGFIX - Baking vertex colours had stopped working following changes in Blender 4.5. I had not noticed. Fixed now following a user report.

Version 2.1.0 1 September 2025

ENHANCEMENT - Minor change to sort the presets (global and local). This was previously in an arbitrary order. Over time I may implement the ability to put these in a custom order but, for now, some level of basic sorting is better than nothing for people with lots of presets. I can't implement proper natural sorting as Blender doesn't ship with the required Python library.

Version 2.0.9 28 August 2025

BUGFIX - Presets created before the AOV Bakes functionality was added would throw an error when loading. Fixed.

Version 2.0.8 8 August 2025

BUGFIX - Updated channel packing to remove an old workaround. RGB textures used for a single channel in the packed texture now use only their corresponding channel (R, G, or B), rather than converting the entire texture to grayscale. This should work better for most users, but if you prefer the old behaviour, I can add an option to restore it.
NEW - Added a new AOV Bakes section to the panel. You can now place an AOV Output node anywhere in the materials of your baked objects, and SimpleBake will bake the input to that node (either colour or value) as its own texture. Can also be used in channel packing.

Version 2.0.7 9 June 2025

ENHANCEMENT - Added %BLEND_FILE_NAME% as an option for the image format string in the SimpleBake addon preferences.

Version 2.0.6 28 May 2025

ENHANCEMENT - Added a new (not recommended) option to disable the automatic swapping of non-PBR shaders for PBR shaders.

Version 2.0.5 12 May 2025

BUGFIX - [ and ] characters were being detected as not valid for external save. Fixed.

Version 2.0.4 2 May 2025

BUGFIX - Numerous changes to the code that handles UDIMs to make this more robust. Eliminated a bug where previously exported UDIM tiles would be applied to bakes of the same image that no longer used those tiles. Also changed how tiles are filled to eliminate the issue with UV islands overlapping UDIM boundaries.

Version 2.0.3 26 April 2025

BUGFIX - Bump map baking was broken in SimpleBake when using the latest version of Blender. Should now be fixed.

Version 2.0.2 1 April 2025

BUGFIX - Auto update function seems to fail on Windows for Blender 4.4. Have changed how this works to try and make it a bit more robust.

Version 2.0.1 1 April 2025

NEW - Option to bake Subsurface Scattering Scale map.
ENHANCEMENT - Channel packed images that have "None" for the Alpha channel are now exported without an Alpha channel.

Version 2.0.0 24 March 2025

BUGFIX - Small update to fix compatibility with Blender 4.4.0 (a name of an icon had been changed and caused a crash).

Version 1.9.9 11 March 2025

NEW - Bringing the "View From" setting to SimpleBake. This setting changes where rays are cast from (either above the surface or the active camera) which will affect how reflections are captured when using CyclesBake.

Version 1.9.8 10 February 2025

Upping max length of batch name from 20 to 50 characters.

Version 1.9.7 30 January 2025

BUGFIX - Fixing a possible bug with DirectX conversion of normal maps.

Version 1.9.6 22 January 2025

BUGFIX - The "Multiple objects to one texture set" option caused a crash when combined with Glossy/DirectX Normals bake types.

Version 1.9.5 22 January 2025

"Copy objects and apply bakes" option now behaves as it used to, even if you enable the "Combine objects within export file" option as well. The only combining of objects will be done in the export file, and not within Blender.
The code to create a material for the "Copy objects and apply bakes" option was inefficient and created multiple materials when baking to one texture set. All Copy and Apply objects from a bake with "Multiple Objects to One Texture Set" turned on will now share the same material (as they should have all along).

Version 1.9.4 17 January 2025

BUGFIX - Drop-down menu for selecting a mesh export preset had vanished. Putting it back.

Version 1.9.3 16 January 2025

BUGFIX - Fixing a slight oversight in the code that implements the Boosted Sample Count.

Version 1.9.2 16 January 2025

ENHANCEMENT - Increasing the default sample count for PBR bakes from 2 to 16. User suggestion that, even with emission bakes, this can improve quality and has a minimal bake time penalty. Can be decreased back to 2 (or any other number) in the SimpleBake user preferences if desired.

Version 1.9.1 14 January 2025

NEW - Option to combine mesh objects when exporting so that a single object is exported. Used in combination with "Multiple Objects to One Texture Set" and "Combined Mesh File" options.
NEW - Option to bake Clearcoat Glossy.
Increased mesh export file name to 50 chars max length. Also now possible to use %blend_file_name% to pick up the name of the blend file for export.

Version 1.9.0 7 January 2025

BUGFIX - Yet another change to try and address colour space issues with channel packing. How Blender handles colour spaces is clearly going to remain a mystery until the day I die. This now appears correct, but it always does — will await feedback.

Version 1.8.9 30 December 2024

BUGFIX - Fixed an issue where SimpleBake attempted to save the Blend file before baking when "Automatically pack external resources into blend file" was enabled. This caused a crash if previously baked textures had been deleted. Now, SimpleBake skips saving the Blend file under these conditions to prevent crashes.

Version 1.8.8 30 December 2024

NEW - Added an anti-aliasing option for all bake types, except normal maps where anti-aliasing is not applicable.

Version 1.8.7 20 December 2024

BUGFIX - "Isolate Objects" wasn't working properly for Specials bakes when using AutoMatch.

Version 1.8.6 16 December 2024

Added DAE as an export option for mesh and made some general improvements to the export mesh code.

Version 1.8.5 15 December 2024

Number of improvements to channel packing code:
- Now preserves colour when the same bake type is used for R, G, and B.
- Fixed the annoying gamma shift that Blender applies when saving a 16-bit PNG that was affecting channel packed images.
- Fixed the annoying gamma shift that Blender applies when saving linear colour space data to PNG that was affecting channel packed images.
Added option to export to OBJ.

Version 1.8.4 9 December 2024

BUGFIX - The AO percentage mix slider wasn't actually being taken into account when mixing AO with diffuse (it was stuck at 50% every time). Now fixed.

Version 1.8.3 9 December 2024

Added missing option to set the alias for Emission Strength.

Version 1.8.2 8 December 2024

Removed block on baking when ZenUV detected.
ENHANCEMENT - Following the conflict with ZenUV, SimpleBake now temporarily suspends the Depsgraph update handlers of all other addons during the bake process, restoring them afterward. While addons should avoid accessing the Depsgraph during tasks like baking, many still do, which can lead to crashes. This approach is an improvement over disabling other addons entirely, as it preserves their settings. It remains to be seen whether there are any unintended side effects.

Version 1.8.1 5 December 2024

BUGFIX - The option to shade objects in the bake list was throwing errors and not working properly due to a recent change in Blender that I hadn't picked up on. Now fixed.

Version 1.8.0 5 December 2024

BUGFIX - The Compositor Denoise option was saving EXR files without the specified compression codec.

Version 1.7.9 4 December 2024

ENHANCEMENT - Added code to tidy up the materials created by the "Copy objects and apply bakes" option. Removes the redundant Normal Map, Displacement and Reroute nodes.

Version 1.7.8 26 November 2024

Very minor change trying to address a possibility for the failed-to-write-image error that one Discord user was experiencing.

Version 1.7.7 19 November 2024

Added option to turn the conflicting addons check on and off.

Version 1.7.6 18 November 2024

Added specific lock out and error message for ZenUV. Can add other conflicting addons if any are discovered.

Version 1.7.3 18 November 2024

CHANGE - Option to disable other addons set to FALSE by default. As this can cause some addons to lose their settings, will keep this as an optional debug helper for people experiencing crashes.

Version 1.7.2 18 November 2024

BUGFIX - Code that re-enabled addons was not working in certain circumstances.

Version 1.7.1 12 November 2024

ENHANCEMENT - Following feedback from some Discord users, I've discovered that Blender experiences crashes during baking if ZenUV is installed. I do not know exactly why this happens, and I don't know if it is just ZenUV or also other addons. To combat it, SimpleBake will now temporarily disable all other addons during foreground bakes and re-enable them afterward. Users can choose to disable this behaviour in the SimpleBake addon preferences.
ENHANCEMENT - When baking objects with geometry nodes, SimpleBake needs to apply all modifiers. Code changed so that modifiers are only applied if they are visible for rendering.

Version 1.7.0 7 November 2024

ENHANCEMENT - Adding support for boolean inputs on node groups.

Version 1.6.9 5 November 2024

BUGFIX - The Blender devs have fixed a bug whereby it wasn't possible to resize individual UDIM tiles. I've now patched SimpleBake to take advantage of that fix. As such, setting different render and output resolutions for UDIM tiles should finally work properly.

Version 1.6.8 7 October 2024

ENHANCEMENT - New option when exporting mesh: "Mesh Objects". Can be set to "Individual mesh files" or "Combined mesh file". This option should work as you would expect when combined with the "Multiple objects to one texture set" and "Sub-folder per object" options.

Version 1.6.7 3 October 2024

Changed the way that background bakes are spawned to try and force use of the GPU in the background (if available). GPU availability in headless mode for Blender may still be dependent on your system configuration and hardware.

Version 1.6.5 1 October 2024

BUGFIX - And what do you know! Exactly the same issue with NodeSocketFloatFactor and NodeSocketFloat!

Version 1.6.4 1 October 2024

BUGFIX - Update needed because apparently NodeSocketVector is different to NodeSocketVectorXYZ, and both exist…

Version 1.6.3 25 September 2024

ENHANCEMENT - Adding support for vector values applied directly to Group nodes.

Version 1.6.2 25 September 2024

BUGFIX - Trying to fix a bug when the "Export with colour management settings" and "Compositor denoise" options are used together.

Version 1.6.1 24 September 2024

BUGFIX - Sockets set to type "Integer" on NodeGroup nodes were ignored. Fixed.

Version 1.6.0 12 September 2024

BUGFIX - Crash was possible when trying to bake a file that had been saved after a previous crash.

Version 1.5.9 12 September 2024

BUGFIX - Compatibility with Blender 4.0 had been broken without realising it. Now fixed.

Version 1.5.8 6 September 2024

BUGFIX - It's somehow possible to get node groups without a node tree, which would cause a crash. Patched around this.

Version 1.5.7 5 September 2024

BUGFIX - Lightmaps weren't included in the % calculation, meaning background bakes with Lightmaps would never finish.

Version 1.5.6 4 September 2024

NEW - It should now be possible to bake PBR from geometry nodes. SimpleBake will apply them before the bake and restore them afterwards.
NEW - New option in addon preferences to save the Blend file upon bake. Enabled by default.
NEW - New option in addon preferences to switch to solid viewport upon bake. Aimed at reducing crashes when baking with EEVEE enabled. Enabled by default.
Some improvements to background baking. Should be more efficient.
Background baking objects with UDIMs is locked out UNLESS you are also exporting your bakes. I didn't realise that this wasn't working properly, resulting in black bakes. After losing a day of my life trying to figure this out, I have written it off to a Blender bug. Cannot find any other reason for it.

Version 1.5.4 1 September 2024

Changed my mind. Removed the block on geometry nodes as I am working on a better solution to allow these to be baked.

Version 1.5.3 30 August 2024

CHANGE - Block on PBR bake attempts for objects with geometry nodes. This doesn't work, and will probably crash, for reasons described on the SimpleBake support page.

Version 1.5.2 29 August 2024

BUGFIX - The "boosted" sample count was not always being respected for the Specials bakes. So AO, Curvature and Thickness bakes may not always have gotten the boosted sample value under Other Settings when baking. Now fixed.

Version 1.5.0 28 August 2024

NEW - Option to highlight all bake objects in the viewport in a chosen colour.
ENHANCEMENT - UI changes to expand the fields for Target and Cage objects.

Version 1.4.9 27 August 2024

Refactoring of lots of the code aimed at enhancing performance and stability.
BUGFIX - Colour space would get messed up when multiplying Diffuse with AO. Should be fixed.

Version 1.4.8 23 August 2024

Small change to the material applied to the automatic cage object. Make it transparent when viewed in Preview or Rendered (not just Solid).

Version 1.4.7 22 August 2024

ENHANCEMENT - Instead of refusing to bake when non-PBR shader nodes are detected for a PBR bake, SimpleBake will instead try to convert the material to PBR. Results may vary. For example, you are not going to get very faithful PBR materials out of the Toon Shader(!), but SimpleBake will do its best.

Version 1.4.6 21 August 2024

ENHANCEMENT - Removed the limitations on baking in the background with materials that contain node groups and also auto-match. This is now possible. Only image sequence cannot be baked in the background at the moment. Ping me on Discord if this would be important to you and I will work on it.
BUGFIX - Decals baking to target wasn't working properly when baking in the background. Fixed.

Version 1.4.5 20 August 2024

Some minor changes aimed at performance and stability.

Version 1.4.4 15 August 2024

NEW - Option to bake displacement maps in PBR mode. This bakes the "Height" input to a Displacement node plugged into the "Displacement" socket of the Material Output node.
ENHANCEMENT - Improvements to how materials are backed-up, modified, and restored to support PBR bakes. More efficient = less burden on Blender = lower likelihood of crashes (hopefully).

Version 1.4.3 3 August 2024

BUGFIX - "Isolate objects from each other while baking" option would sometimes cause a crash. Now fixed.

Version 1.4.2 2 August 2024

Thought of some improvements to the new auto-detect PBR maps feature. Should work much better with node groups.

Version 1.3.7 1 August 2024

Small bug fix that I noticed.

Version 1.3.6 1 August 2024

NEW - Added a button that attempts to auto-detect what PBR maps will be needed for a PBR bake. This looks at all the materials on all the bake objects, and tries to work out where channels are being used. If materials are messy, it may overestimate the maps needed, but it should never underestimate.

Version 1.3.4 31 July 2024

NEW - Added a number of "utility" functions to reset all SimpleBake settings, restore materials and remove objects/images/materials. Also a find and replace for object/image/material names which may be handy sometimes.

Version 1.3.3 30 July 2024

NEW - Implementing a user suggestion: automatically create a cage object for your selected target object when baking to target.
Disabled the UI option for Transmission Roughness above Blender 4.0. This was switched off in the background, but shouldn't be visible to the user.

Version 1.3.2 15 July 2024

BUGFIX - "Import specials materials for editing" button didn't check if Blender was in object mode. Fixed.
Upped the character limit on preset names from 20 to 64 chars.

Version 1.3.1 14 July 2024

Removed the custom exception handler. This was supposed to make it easier for users to report bugs, but it actually had the opposite effect and made them harder to track down.
BUGFIX - Fixed a bug when baking decals. Didn't check for a target object on newer versions of Blender, would cause an immediate crash if one not set.

Version 1.3.0 4 July 2024

CHANGE - The UI has been changed to use toggles instead of tickboxes (along with a bunch of other changes to try and clean it up a bit). If you are a passionate toggle hater, you can change it back to tickboxes in the SimpleBake addon preferences.
BUGFIX - Fixed the button in channel packing to insert examples. This has been broken for a while and I hadn't noticed.
Numerous small bug fixes and improvements behind the scenes.

Version 1.2.9 17 June 2024

BUGFIX - Very small patch to try and stop a possible bug reported by a user.

Version 1.2.8 6 June 2024

BUGFIX - Changed the behaviour of the "Isolate object from each other during baking" option for Auto Match. This will now hide all other objects from baking except the current matched pair.

Version 1.2.7 5 June 2024

BUGFIX - Noticed one of the operators was not unloading properly. Would cause an error if you enabled, disabled and then re-enabled SimpleBake. Now fixed.

Version 1.2.6 5 June 2024

NEW - New option to save presets to the blend file, as well as globally.
BUGFIX - Materials with values inputted into the node group itself would not be preserved on ungroup. This led to incorrect baking for some materials with node groups. Now fixed.

Version 1.2.5 2 June 2024

BUGFIX - There is a bug in Blender 4.0 that caused a crash when using the new method for ungrouping node groups. It is fixed in Blender 4.1. Old method for ungrouping node groups reinstated when Blender version below 4.1 is detected.
BUGFIX - Export mesh had stopped working following the last update. Fixed.

Version 1.2.3 28 May 2024

Better method for saving presets (behind the scenes).
Better method for ungrouping node groups (behind the scenes, hopefully much fewer crashes).
NEW - Bake image sequences (bake → advance frame of scene → bake etc.).
Added a warning about displaying SimpleBake on the N-Panel (this seems to cause crashes — still investigating).

Version 1.1.9 7 May 2024

NEW - Option to display SimpleBake on the N-Panel instead of the Render Settings panel. (BETA)
NEW - Option in SimpleBake addon preferences to abbreviate the resolution in the baked file name (e.g. "4096x4096" to "4K").
NEW - Option to enable/disable "Correct aspect" for any SmartUVProject operation.
BUGFIX - Lightmaps were being saved as BW externally. Now saved as RGB or RGBA as needed.

Earlier versions

Release notes before this date were lost in a server error.