I'm wondering if someone can help me with this, hope I explain it correct.

Basically I am trying to bake my object's texture to a flat image where I'll be able to open in Photoshop and edit them some more. I can get the maps to generate fine but it isnt picking up any of the highlights applied, just the solid color.

The shader for the object is just a plain black texture with reflection, and in the scene tab I have an HDRI background, I have one camera and two spotlights out (Which I have the visability turned off, same results when I had the visability turned on). In the render room I have Sky Light and Indirect Light checked off and when I do the normal Carrara render the image looks fine, highlights pick up ect. I click on the first object where I want to bake the image map, follow the steps via baker, and just get a plain flat black image.

I'm kinda getting nervous now though as this is why I got the program. Will Baker not pick up the shineyness added, or am I missing something completely? (I hope)

Sorry, wasnt sure how to go back into the original post to delete it, so I'll just post a reply. I found my answer, unfortunatly. Baker doesnt support HDRI/Sky Lights/Indirect Lights and that is/was why it wasnt working. Thanks anways.

To "bake" a HDRI image just create a JPG version with low resolution and wrap it in a sphere. That is what Carrara does with background images, no more then that. I wrote (??) one tutorial about this and you can see it in Carrara Lounge site, its a video tutorial that show what Carrara does with Background images, and how they work.

Hi there, thank you for the reply. Was a great tutorial, but not exactly what I needed. I have a hard time trying to explain, but I will try my best.

Basically I opened my model in Carrara and fiddled with the shaders of each section, 3 in total, all were black in color, with a reflection and a highlight/shine added. In the assembly room I applied an HDRI image as my background and in the Render Room I turned on Sky Light. That created a nice Glossy PVC look onto my model, this is what I am trying to keep....

Now, out of that I needed to be able to somehow bake the texture onto the models UV Map, retaining the Glossy Highlight/Reflection from the HDRI/Skylight values where I could then open it in a paint program. I tried Baker, but it would not keep the Gloss look from the HDRI and it just left me with a black image.

Sense Baker cant do it, is there a way for me to be able to?

Looks that baker cant bake a reflection, what is very strange since it have the reflection option in the window. Maybe you need to contact Inagoni about that. The SDK for Carrara 7 is still in beta and maybe this is a bug??

Not a bug supposedly. This is the reply I got on the Daz forums..

***Baker does render specular reflections, however, if you are using ANY other lighting method other than the standard direct light one, then Baker will not render correctly.
Baker doesn't support indirect lighting nor skylight/HDRI, so disable this before trying to bake and make a regular render to see what happens. ***

Unfortunatly, HDRI/Skylight is what is giving it the look I want. A good example of the look I am trying to accomplish is 'The Dark Legion' from Populus, a member on here. NO I AM NOT COPYING HIS WORK, PROMISE. I am simply trying to achieve the same glossy PVC look he achieved, and I followed his directions on how he did it. MAN does it look good, problem is my image isnt staying in the 3D enviorment, it needs to be able to be broken down onto the objects UV Map so I can open it in a paint program, again, not so hard, technically would be able to do it in Baker, except that it wont calculate the HDRI Gloss and all I get is a plain black image.

Is there anyway at all for me to be able to retain the HDRI aspects of the object and still be able to open it on it's UV Map to be used in a paint program?

I tried taking rendered screen shots of the final model so I could cut and paste pieces into it's 2d UV Map in Photoshop but it did NOT work good, the Models map is wrapped for 3d so I couldnt get it to sit right on the 2d map.

Well I think that is something that I cant help... its realy hard to bake this base din the HDRI source.

Well, Thank you for the response non the less.

I am trying to see if I can simulate the reflective glossy look on the avatar another way, there has got to be a way to get that look without having to use HDRI, I guess I am about to find out.

Apprecite your time trying to help, was very kind of you.

Normally, Baker will bake reflection texture values into the JPG or TGA that you save from Carrara.  Then you import your model into another 3D program and apply the baked reflection texture image onto the model.  Then you load the same HDRI file you used in Carrara into the other application and use it as a background just as you did in Carrara. 

In theory then, your model (when rendered in the other application) should be just as reflective as it was in Carrara and you should see the HDRI reflected on it the same way.

Definatly good to see that is possable. Problem is,  Daz 3D, Carrara Pro 7 and Blender are the only 3D programs I have.
Blender can also bake textures but can't seem to pick up the shineyness, at least from what I've been able to do, and can't find any tutorials to suggest otherwise, I am unfamilar with Daz as I just downloaded it yesterday but didn't think it handled texture baking.
I had originally bought Carrara in hopes to do that, because it was onsale and programs like Lightwave and Maya are just so expensive, the bad part was finding out that the 'render' engine in Carrara I thought was something totally different, IE: Baking the texture onto the UV Map of an Object, got the Baker Plug-in to do it, and like you said it will it  just cant pick up the HDRI.
There happen to be an inexpensive/freebie program that'd I'd be able to load the HDRI image and a .obj model into it to try that?

BTW, thank you also for the reply and help, I do greatly apprecite it very much.

You may want to do a google search for baking HDRI images onto 3D objects if there is such a thing.  It's for sure not desireable for animated objects.

Just found this, look if can help you:

http://carraralounge.com/index.php?topic=127.0

Thank you both for replying, cant stress enough how much I apprecite you guys taking the time to try and help me.

Searching on Google, unfortunatly so far, though I am still looking..Maya keeps poping up laugh Just wish it wasnt so expensive, I would of got that in the first place. There is a free trial for Autodesk Maya, so Im going to see if that would help at all.

I read about Giles and I actually was going to try it, for some reason I couldnt get it to run, when I unzipped it, it just tossed it's files in the directory I selected, and when I clicked on the .exe for it a small flash of a start up flickered, then nothing.

I've also been trying to see if I can get almost the same results trying to do it via the shaders and lights, a little close, but I'd have to do far to much work in photoshop to have it sit right, and at that point, why not just photoshop it all? Im definatly not that talented laugh This turned out to be quite the little project, definatly a learning experience...