Materials tab - PI-VR GmbH

» ModulesAPPEARANCE tabAppearance Tab: ambient occlusionThe Ambient Occlusion Calculation in VRED is a preprocess. It takes place during datapreparation. The calculated Ambient Occlusion results are baked on the geometry’svertices. The smoothness of Ambient Occlusion depends on the detail level of a geometry.Therefore, VRED offers several ways to increase the quality of low level geometries,like subdividing triangles and predefined quality presets.Ambient Occlusion is a sophisticated calculation method which simulates soft globalillumination by faking darkness perceived in corners and at mesh intersections, creases,and cracks, where light is diffused (usually) by accumulated dirt and dust. This effecthelps to simulate and create darkening cracks, corners and points of contact.Ambient Occlusion is a specific not-physically-accurate rendering trick. It basically samplesa hemisphere around each point of the face, sees what proportion of the hemisphereis occluded by another geometry, and shades the pixel accordingly. It has nothingto do with lighting, it is simply a rendering trick that looks nice. This is because generally,in real life, surfaces that are close together (like small cracks) are darker than exposedsurfaces, because of shadows, dirt, etc.The Ambient Occlusion process almost reaches real-life results, as it does not simulatelight bouncing around or going through things. This is why Ambient Occlusion evenworks in scenes without lighting.Important: Only selected objects are calculated. All other visible objects in the scene aretaken into account.244