In
animation, the process of creating a single animation curve for
an object whose actions are being provided by simulation rather
than by keys and animation curves (keysets). This
process makes many types of animation available that are not available
for keyset editing.
In rendering, the process of rendering
illumination, shadow, shading, and textures to a file texture or
to per-vertex color mesh. Baking lets you render an object once
and either re-use the file texture as a texture map or bake colors
onto vertex meshes. Texture maps can also be manipulated to obtain
lighting effects that would be difficult to achieve in other ways.
In mental ray for Maya,
also known as light mapping.
