Baking lighting simplifies rendering by precomputing light data into textures while requiring 3D models to have optimized UV layouts and clean geometry for accurate light transfer.
For 3D modeling: Proper UV unwrapping ensures lightmaps don’t stretch, and clean geometry captures light details (e.g., shadows) accurately, making models suitable for baked lighting workflows.
For rendering: It stores light interactions (shadows, ambient occlusion) in lightmaps, reducing real-time computation and speeding up processes, critical for real-time applications like games.