Texture before baking
After baking
I am purposely giving more real state to UVs where there is text or the glow where the light from the glow is hitting.
Is this ok or should I just select all UVs and use Smart UV Project for everything?
Thanks guys
Your texture gets broken because you have overlapping UVs. When baking a 3D model (and that’s not just in Blender), you need to have each island separate, or each one of them will just add its own texture bake on top of each other.
However, there is a way to turn your existing texture into a baked texture: have the existing textures and the bake use different UVs.
You can give your object a second set of UVs, pack those new UVs so the islands don’t overlap and instead of baking over your existing texture, you create a new, blank image and set it up so it uses the second UVs.
I did not show it, but that is the exact nodes setup I am using.
So all I have to do is to repack the UVs, rearrange their UV dimensions according to their importance, and ensure that they won’t overlap.
Thank you so much for your help etn249 
