Is there a way to preview the texture bake on the object? For example while the texture is baking, the actual object shows the render, kind of like render view in the 3D view but only the object.
If you mean having the texture update in realtime while it’s being baked, I’m pretty sure that it’s not possible.
Is this because the way it bakes? I assumed it baked progressively, It would be cool if it did bake progressively <— or maybe that would be too slow – Then the user could see the update in real time and decided when to end the bake.
But as you said it may not be possible, but why?
Well I’m sure it’s possible if someone wanted to write all the code required to do it, but I don’t think anyone would bother to do it unless it was easy to do or a lot of people wanted it.
It’s part of the plan, and the discussion is not new… But it’s not considered a priority, and there are still other baking/cycles issues more important to solve in the first place…