Procedural Ambient Occlusion struggle

Support Materials and Textures
#1

HI
I’m currently on my way migrating from MODO.
Found almost every feature which i need to work productively. BUT.

I was unable to find working procedural AO (no UV) which i can use as mask to scratch edges or place dirt.
I’m aware of “pointiness”, but it’s result is TRASH (huge trash).
OSLs which i found wasn’t working (not a huge deal, their result was messy also).

My current MODO workflow is that:
model something -> throw materal with rounded edge and scratches -> preview it -> model again -> preview -> model … etc.
So it would be horrific to generate UV and bake AO every single time i want to preview result.

Screenshot_3.png1919×886 327 KB


On image there is a procedural Occlusion layer which sits inside Group and acts like mask for that group.
Also in group there is a procedural Noise.

That tree can be easily converted into nodes, but we need procedural mask for it.

Is there a way to do something similar?

#2

I think i know the answer!

There is a branch of blender with Rounded Edge Node availabe : https://developer.blender.org/D2803
Which outputs normal information.

AAAaand we can convert normal information to curvature : https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/52902/how-to-convert-a-normal-map-into-a-curvature-map
Which is exactly what i need to make good procedural materials :slight_smile:

Let’s hope that branch will be merged soon :slight_smile:

#3

HOPE THE DEVELOPERS add ao node like other render engines