Cycles & AO

[BFG9000]

Hi all,

I tried to use Ambient Occlusion with Cycles. I enabled AO checkbox in World tab but got absolutely the same render as without AO. Does Ambient Occlusion setting in Cycles affect anything?

[FoundationsofPause]

Did you play with the factor or distance sliders for the AO? You should see a huge difference in the default scene.

[Roken]

10 units is the default for AO, which is way too much IMO.

[theoldghost]

BFG9000, has your default settings been changed somehow. Factor: 1.0 Distance: 10.0 And, at that setting it will blow many scenes out.

But, since you started a AO thread I would like to ask this. Has anyone seen AO do what the Google definition says. By the way BFG9000 don’t be reluctant to use it a low factor of 0.2 or even 0.1 All I have ever really seen is a Hemi light like in the classic Blender Internal.

It brings up the overall illumination but doesn’t darken corners or crevices at least on my machine. If anyone has seen any different please post a before and after and tell us how you did that. I have tried everyway I can think of without seeing Ambient Occlusion. And, that includes checking AO in the Nvidia card control panel. But, hey it could simply be my computer.

BFG9000 I hope you get it working. If nothing else it will brighten your overall scene and cut down on grain. Albeit the render time goes up if you’re interested in animation.

[J_the_Ninja]

@theoldghost

BFG9000, has your default settings been changed somehow. Factor: 1.0 Distance: 10.0 And, at that setting it will blow many scenes out.

But, since you started a AO thread I would like to ask this. Has anyone seen AO do what the Google definition says. By the way BFG9000 don’t be reluctant to use it a low factor of 0.2 or even 0.1 All I have ever really seen is a Hemi light like in the classic Blender Internal.

It brings up the overall illumination but doesn’t darken corners or crevices at least on my machine. If anyone has seen any different please post a before and after and tell us how you did that. I have tried everyway I can think of without seeing Ambient Occlusion. And, that includes checking AO in the Nvidia card control panel. But, hey it could simply be my computer.

BFG9000 I hope you get it working. If nothing else it will brighten your overall scene and cut down on grain. Albeit the render time goes up if you’re interested in animation.

The world AO thing in Cycles is actually an ambient lamp with built-in occlusion, not a raw occlusion pass. It’s meant to be used as a substitute for GI in test renders or when you want that style. Btw, when using GI in Cycles (diffuse depth > 0) you do not need to render AO as Cycles GI is correctly occluded already. If you want to use it for various artistic touches, it’s usually easier to enable the AO pass which will generate the AO data but store it in a separate buffer without affecting your main scene.

[theoldghost]

J_the_Ninja, thanks that is what I’m seeing alright but explained. Roken I’ve read that setting should be half the height of the ceiling in a interior shot. Yeah right. By trial and error I have 7.5 set for a 12 foot ceiling.