How to use the Baking Node:

1. Add a "Bake" node to your material tree ( Add > Outputs > Bake)
2. Choose from a preset or manually add and configure inputs [figure 1]
3. Inputs represent bake passes
4. Choose the map type ("Color"/"sRGBA" for color information, "Vector"/"RGBA" for vector or untransformed information e.g. Normal Maps, channel-packed maps.
5. Choose a bake mode ("Simple" for fast bake times, "Shading"/"Shadow"/"Combined" for additional shading information, "W-T Normal" to bake normal maps, "C Normal" to bake custom normals (NPR workflow) [figure 2]
6. Add post-processing effects (Denoise, Blur, Feather) to every pass individually (indicated by diamond-shaped socket)
7. Preview passes using the white Dot symbol next to the socket indicator [figure 3]
8. Bake all maps with one click of a button
9. Continue working on your project (will not interfere) and check log for monitoring bake times
10. Press the "File" button to open the output location (outputs are being saved in the same directory as the blend file or under the temporary directory for unsaved files) [figure 3]
11. Folder Structure:
    • [Output Directory]
      
      • [Bake Name]
        • [Bake Name]_[Bake Pass].[File Format]
        • Monkey_baseColor.png
12. Instance textures after each bake in individual settings
13. Remove/mute inputs in individual settings

figure 1

figure 2

figure 3