Bake Cage
Envelope mesh that controls ray distance
Also known as: Cage · Cage mesh · Envelope
Definition
A bake cage is an inflated copy of the low-poly mesh used as the outer boundary for normal/AO/curvature bake rays. For each surface point on the low-poly, the baker traces a ray from inside the cage through that point and out — the first high-poly surface it hits becomes the source for the baked data. A correct cage avoids both ray "misses" (too tight, geometry skips) and "skews" (too loose, picks up wrong details).
In production
Marmoset Toolbag's "Skew Painter" lets you paint cage adjustments per-vertex, fixing problem zones (eye sockets, mouth interiors, ear cavities) without remaking the whole cage. This is the single most important fix for baking artefacts on character heads.
Learn Bake Cage in
Tools that use Bake Cage
See also
Baking
High-poly detail → low-poly texture
Normal Map
Per-pixel surface detail
Low-Poly Model
Game-ready mesh
High-Poly Model
The detail source for baking
Bake Artifacts in Substance Painter
Spots, streaks and skewed detail after baking
Match by Mesh Name
Bake setting that pairs low and high poly parts
Max Frontal and Rear Distance
Ray length settings in Painter baking
Bake Group
Pairs a low-poly with its high-poly in Toolbag
Marmoset Toolbag Bake Artifacts
Streaks and skewed detail in a Toolbag bake