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How to Decimate and Bake Atlas in Autodesk Maya

November 06, 2025

General Information

This guide is part of the RapidPipeline 3D Plugin Actions Knowledge Base. It shows how to Decimate and Bake Atlas on Autodesk Maya; if you'd like to know more about it, please check out the following links:

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Tutorials & Videos

  • Use the Maya Plugin
  • Select a part
  • Run "Decimate and Bake Atlas" Action
  • Examine the results

This tutorial shows how use the RapidPipeline Processor Plugin in Maya to simplify the geometry of a model with decimation and bake the material and texture information into a new UV atlas. For more information see the Maya Plugin Documentation.

See below a preview of the processing´s output: the input shoe (top) has 145 K faces and the output (bottom), less than 50K faces: --->

Screenshot of the input model
The shoe input model.
Screenshot of the input model
The shoe after the optimization (baked).

Decimate and Bake Atlas Action

  1. First step is to make sure the RapidPipeline Processor Plugin for Maya is installed and ready to use.
  2. Open the Plugin via the Menu Bar, clicking on RapidPipeline and Show Plugin Window.
  3. Select the model you want to optimize (if no selection is made, the whole scene will be processed).
  4. Inside the Plugin window, choose the Action Decimate and Bake Atlas.
  5. Press the Run button.
Screenshot of the input model
Location of the UI in the Menu Bar.
Screenshot of the input model
The Decimate and Bake Atlas Action opened in the Plugin.

Examine the Results

To fully check the topology optimization by enabling Wireframe on Shaded from the Viewport Shading drop-down menu, so you can see a wireframe view of your models.

Finally, you can compare the materials and texture count of input and output by opening the Hypershade window (Windows > Rendering Editors > Hypershade, or pressing the shortcut Shift + T). Make sure your object is selected and open the Material Viewer panel at the bottom, and click on the Graph Materials on Selected Objects option.

Screenshot of the input model
"Wireframe on shaded” option in the Viewport Shading drop-down menu.
Screenshot of the input model
"Material Viewer Panel” inside Hypershade Window.
Screenshot of the input model
The Graph Materials on Selected Objects option.
Screenshot of the input model
Materials & textures (in graph form) from input model.
Screenshot of the input model
Materials & textures (in graph form) from output model. .

Next Steps

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3D Knowledge Team

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