Though you can perform a simple bake without bothering with them, bake sets are convenient way for those who require more flexibility to perform complex baking options (such as game developers).
A bake set is a type of set in Maya. Bake sets define parameters for a collection of polygon or NURBS objects. A Maya scene can use multiple bake sets to vary the result of baking. There are two types of bake sets in Maya. Vertex bake sets (see Vertex Bake Set) contain polygon objects, and Texture bake sets (see Texture Bake Set) can contain NURBS or polygon objects. The type of bake set used determines the available parameters.
For example, you can texture-bake objects with different UV ranges or output resolution, or vertex-bake objects with different color blending or clamping.
Assigning objects to bake sets
By default, any object in your scene is automatically assigned to the initial vertex bake set or the initial texture bake set (depending on what you choose to bake to) as soon as you bake the object. The initial bake set lets you bake objects with the same settings easily without having to set up additional bake sets.
If you want to bake objects with different settings, create bake sets and assign objects to them. An assigned object is baked according to the attributes of the bake set to which it is assigned, whether it is the default initial bake set, a texture bake set, or a vertex bake set.
