Bake AO – Easy ambient occlusion baking

What is Bake AO?

Bake AO allows you to bake ambient occlusion textures within the editor. This reduces the need for external software and streamlines your workflow with an easy-to-use and simple interface.

Why use BakeAO? Ambient occlusion improves model visuals in certain light conditions, especially shadows and ambient lighting. With AO textures, models look more realistic and detailed.

With BakeAO, you can:

• Bake AO textures with minimal setup
• Customize settings per model as needed
• Work entirely within Unity for faster iteration

---- BEST USE ----

It works best when your game uses ambient lighting and shadows and lacks clarity in those areas; bake AO will improve the visual clarity of the models, even if the AO application is very subtle.

I tested the asset using

• assets made by Unity: Viking Village, Tanks
• models from Polyperfect: Low Poly Ultimate Pack
• models from Synty Studios: POLYGON Western - Low Poly 3D Art by Synty

---- DOCUMENTATION ----

You can find documentation and more details here: https://proceduralpixels.com/BakeAO/Documentation

---- FEATURES ----

Fast Baking Process: Designed to produce high-quality textures efficiently. Baking is done using GPU.

Background Baking: Baking tasks run in the background while you continue working on your Unity project.

Multi-Object Baking: Bake textures for multiple models simultaneously, streamlining your workflow.

Component for Automatic AO Texture Setting: Attach a BakeAO component to apply AO textures to MeshRenderer and SkinnedMeshRenderer. It will automatically find (or bake) the correct texture.

Non-destructive Workflow: Baking parameters are saved with the texture, allowing for later adjustments and parameter reuse. Baking is also not disrupted by working on the project. You will not lose data while recompiling scripts, importing new models, or switching scenes.

Integrated with Unity Presets: Utilize or create presets for consistent baking results and streamlined parameter setup.

Baking in Scene Context: Nearby models can affect the result. AO textures can capture the surrounding environment's impact.

Detailed Parametrization: There are plenty of parameters to play with. Adjust the final texture look to meet your desired visuals.

Baking for Different UV Sets: Tailor AO baking to different UV sets for optimal results.

User-Friendly Interface: Intuitive interface for easy navigation and parameter adjustments. With the included Baking Wizard, you can add objects for baking just by dragging and dropping objects from the project into the window.

Active Task Management: Monitor and control baking tasks with a straightforward interface.

Custom Shaders: Custom shader graph node and HLSL library for shader customization.

No asset Store Dependencies, no DLLs: I value giving opportunities to learn and improve; that's why Bake AO consists of only open C# scripts and HLSL shader code; there is no hidden code you can't change.

---- LIMITATIONS AND BEFORE YOU BUY ----

Note: Bake AO is not a scene lightmapper, it's a tool for creating ambient occlusion textures that you can later use in materials or through the BakeAO component. 

See all the limitations in documentation to find out more.