Is it possible to create a UV map from a rendered object in Blender

Question

I am wondering if it is possible, and if so, how, to create a UV map from a high detail rendered image in blender, sort of like you can do in professional 3D applications and game engines, like Maya, for instance.

I would like to be able to create some high detail renders and map them to a low poly mesh.

Does anyone know if this can be done?

I am willing to consider using a plugin or other 3rd party application to accomplish this task. I prefer free, though.

Answer 1

Search for Texture Baking or Render Baking. Below two links from Blender's website.

Render Baking:

Blender's render pipeline supports rendering to UV texturemaps as well. This is only supported for Mesh Objects with texture faces and Images assigned.

Baking Selected to Active:

A typical use case is to make a detailed, high poly object, and then bake it's normals onto an object with a low polygon count. The resulting normal map can then be applied to make the low poly object look more detailed.