Baking out proper normals and AO's from Blender I am new to blender and this is my first post on the forums so please forgive me if these are noob questions (I looked through the previously asked questions already but haven't found a solution to my problem). I am working on a work flow that takes me from Blender through Quixel. Currently I am using pre-made models and unwrapping the UV's for them, I am separating the components of the model by material labeling them as such for easy ID in Quixel.

After that I am baking out (using Blender game render) my material map, my normal map and my AO map, but I am not getting the traditional looking "purple normal map) or the "white and shaded AO" like I understand them.

Normal Map


AO Map
You should turn OFF "Selected to Active," choose "Tangent" for your Normal space. , and set your "Distance" higher than zero. The Distance setting here is for baking to a cage (lo-poly version of your hi-poly model). There's a similar Distance setting in the AO section that should be greater than zero.

Cycles is currently (and quite admirably) trying to map your normals and AO map onto the lamp. "Selected to Active" is for baking normals from a hi-poly mesh onto a lo-poly mesh. It doesn't have anything to do with the lamp. In this case, you just want it off.

You also want to check the AO settings in the World panel. That's (mysteriously) where the AO distance and sampling settings are. Make sure those a reasonable, and you should get a better result.