Do you guys still add ambient occlusion on your baked texture?

[Galatheus 1]

Sometimes I feel like they look worse sometimes they look better.

Idk what to do, should I still add a layer of ambient occlusion on top of my baked texture or not? What are you suggestions?

Edited September 22 by Galatheus

[ChinRey 4,602]

3 hours ago, Galatheus said:

Sometimes I feel like they look worse sometimes they look better.

Idk what to do, should I still add a layer of ambient occlusion on top of my baked texture or not? What are you suggestions?

I think you answered in your first sentence. If they make the thing look better, use them, if not, don't.

Ambient occlusion will never look natural because it doesn't exist in real life. In RL they use something called the Fresnel effect instead and that's exactly the opposite - things tend to look lighter, not darker towards the edges.

Sometimes you need a bit of accentuation to bring out the shape of the object though and besides, AO is necessary to give that lovely "hand drawn" feel that is so popular in SL.

[Chic Aeon 10,849]

If you bake a CYCLES texture (or the same idea in programs other than Blender)  it includes the AO (or equivilent) in the mix. That is what most of the popular designers do.  You would adjust how prominent  the AO  appears by the lighting set up. So likely you are using another method?  Another way to "bump up" the ambient would simply be to adjust the CONTRAST in a graphics program.  Maybe some screenshot examples would help readers understand exactly what you are asking. 

[arton Rotaru 917]

23 hours ago, Galatheus said:

What are you suggestions?

I like AO.

[Galatheus 1]

On 9/23/2019 at 10:53 AM, ChinRey said:

I think you answered in your first sentence. If they make the thing look better, use them, if not, don't.

Ambient occlusion will never look natural because it doesn't exist in real life. In RL they use something called the Fresnel effect instead and that's exactly the opposite - things tend to look lighter, not darker towards the edges.

Sometimes you need a bit of accentuation to bring out the shape of the object though and besides, AO is necessary to give that lovely "hand drawn" feel that is so popular in SL.

Thanks for the response      I do like AO it's just that they don't blend with my bakes sometimes, and with that I skip it but the problem is because I used AO in my previous stuff and then I look at them both, they look like they're not made by one person 😕

[Galatheus 1]

On 9/24/2019 at 12:57 AM, Chic Aeon said:

If you bake a CYCLES texture (or the same idea in programs other than Blender)  it includes the AO (or equivilent) in the mix. That is what most of the popular designers do.  You would adjust how prominent  the AO  appears by the lighting set up. So likely you are using another method?  Another way to "bump up" the ambient would simply be to adjust the CONTRAST in a graphics program.  Maybe some screenshot examples would help readers understand exactly what you are asking. 

oh you mean use the AO map in the material or turn on Ambient occlusion in the settings?

[Galatheus 1]

On 9/24/2019 at 6:58 AM, arton Rotaru said:

I like AO.

me too

 

[Chic Aeon 10,849]

44 minutes ago, Galatheus said:

oh you mean use the AO map in the material or turn on Ambient occlusion in the settings?

It is all built in if you choose "complete" when you bake. This in Cycles -- have no idea on other renders

[OptimoMaximo 1,007]

16 hours ago, Galatheus said:

oh you mean use the AO map in the material or turn on Ambient occlusion in the settings

You can do both, if you play smart with nodes. Most PBR offline renderers don't have a slot for an AO map, but basically what it does is to tone down the reflectivity or the glossiness in the AO darker areas. So if you have a roughness input slot, you can layer the inverted AO map and set it as add or screen blend mode over the roughness map, therefore reducing that area's amount of reflected light, which in turn doesn't allow much light bounces and resulting in a darker texture. I don't know cycles well enough though, so i can't tell whether that is the best approach. For example in VRay the method mentioned above doesn't work as well as layering the AO map over the reflection map input as multiply without inversion. On the other hand, resist the temptation of layering the AO on top of the color map, as that would result in a non physical behavior with shadowed areas darker in color but with reflection highlights. 

Edited September 26 by OptimoMaximo