Victor Karp

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How to bake animations, rigid bodies and cloth in Blender

By Victor KarpPosted on Posted in Blender, Tutorial

Last Updated on 31. May 2022 by Victor Karp

This tutorial explains how to convert a single animation frame, a rigid body or a keyframe of a cloth simulation to a static mesh in Blender. I’ve originally written it as a short response to a thread in the Blender Steam Community.

Baking animations is useful if you want to:

  • turn an animated character into an environment prop statue
  • scatter objects like debris and wooden planks around and convert them into a prop
  • use cloth simulation to drape pillows on a bed and then keep them in their final pose.

First, go to the keyframe you want to keep. Then do one of the following.

Baking animated objects

Select the object, then go to the 3D viewport and in the top toolbar select Object -> Animation -> Bake Action.

Baking rigid body physics

Select the object, then go to the 3D viewport and in the top toolbar select Object -> Rigid Body -> Apply transformation, then remove the Rigid Body property from the Physics tab to turn the object back into a regular mesh.

Bake a cloth simulation

Select the object, then go to the Modifiers tab and apply the Cloth modifier.

Visit the Blender Tutorials main page for more Blender tutorials.

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