Ambient Occlusion node - Blender Cycles

[Chic Aeon]

Can the Ambient Occlusion node in Cycles be use as part of a combined bake?   Info seems both sketchy and confusing.  I understand it use in setting up a scene for a render but I also found mention of it being used in a node structure for a material output but that was the end of the comment.

 

Hints?  :D.   Maybe for increasing the ambient shadows for more dramatic baking?    Will experiment but breadcrumbs are good.

 

Thanks.

 

Edit: So I did some experiment and it does "seem" to give a good effect for some things and could be handy.   In my tests it worked much better with the glossy shader than the diffuse. It DOES (as I had read) brighten your scene a LOT so I had to compensate with my brightness and contrast shader.  

 

Here is the node structure and screenshot (note that materials are not in their final state and texture scale hasn't happened -- just starting the project). Hence the pixelated look on the "wood" LOL.

 

It SEEMS like it should show up in the bake but it will be awhile until I get there.

 

[Cain Maven]

Indeed it will -- but you may find it more useful if you use an Add shader to mix the AO and diffuse/glossy node outputs. That way, you can keep the global AO setting turned off to prevent overall scene brightening and add the AO effect to some materials.

Also note that instead of using the diffuse as input to the AO node, you can leave it unconnected and simply specify a color (typically a shade of gray) to tweak the effect.

Btw, the Emission node can be used to achieve similar results.

 

[Chic Aeon]

Well of course I had no idea what I was doing but it worked out swimming.  I did try a mixed shader with the diffuse/glossy but it didn't seem to do much. Will look at that again.

 

I actually DID have the AO turned off in world (happily the file was open in another window) mostly because I never fiddle with that.

 

Will play with Emission. Thanks for the input!!!!

 

I was AMAZED how well it came into world. Really never expected that, so a good thing to add to the mix when you want a gorgeous glossy.