Blender 2.71 Cycles Baking

[Dree Eames]

I've spent a few hours coming up to speed with the Cycles renderer and it's baking feature. Although using nodes is fun,  I don't see a huge improvement in the results I can achieve with baking in Cycles vs Blender Render.  Regular rendering is with Cycles is fantastic, but is there any real advantage when it comes to baking?  I'd appreciate it if folks with experience using cycles baking would comment on their  experience using Cycles Baking vs. Blender Render and what the advantages are.  Thanks!

[Nalates Urriah]

So far I've found some improved quality. But, I doubt it is enough that many people would notice.

So, far the primary reason I use Cycles and nodes is the render provides a quicker look at the materials I make and the nodes give me more control... or may be I should say the nodes give me more understanding of what is happening with the controls. I know where to start tweaking to get the result I want.

Also once I created a ffew types of materials and started grouping nodes I begin building a library of materials. These I can import to any Blender file and connect a UV Map and have a material I've already tweaked to my liking. 

It seems that Cycles is the direction the Blender team is headed. So, more optimazations and improvements will be coming to Cycles. The Cycles render doesn't help much with quality for things going to SL but for renders in Blender the quality improvement is significant.

[Dree Eames]

Thanks Nalates.  I've done something similar with regular Blender Render materials - collecting my favorites and placing them in a library blend file. It's a great time saver.  

The fact that one can view the render in real time IS perhaps the greatest advantage.  That really eliminates alot of the tedium when refining materials.  I suspect as you stated there is some improved quality, but it may not be noticable in SL.

I do find the method of  lighting in cycles where one uses  objects set to emmisive (sp?)rather then lamps  is much nicer then trying to position a gazillion lamps around objects.

So maybe the advantage is more a workflow thing.