PI-VR - VRED Professional Documentation - PI-VR GmbH

VRED DocumentationYou are here: Modules > Appearance Tab > Ambient OcclusionAmbient OcclusionGetting startedUsing VRED ProfessionalMenus and icons tabScenegraphModulesTerminalMaterial EditorAnimation TabAppearance TabAmbient OcclusionGeometry EditorLight EditorInfo TabRendering TabVariants TabSearchSend QuestionIn VRED the Ambient Occlusion Calculation is apreprocess and takes place during the datapreparation. The calculated Ambient Occlusion resultswill be baked on the geometries vertices. Thesmoothness of the Ambient Occlusion depends on thelevel of detail of a geometry. Therefore VRED offersseveral ways to increase the quality on low levelgeometries, like subdividing triangles and predefinedquality presets.Ambient Occlusion is a sophisticated calculationmethod which simulates soft global illumination byfaking darkness perceived in corners and at meshintersections, creases, and cracks, where light isdiffused (usually) by accumulated dirt and dust. Thishas the effect of darkening cracks, corners and pointsof contact.Ambient Occlusion is a specific not-physically-accuraterendering trick. It basically samples a hemispherearound each point on the face, sees what proportion ofthat hemisphere is occluded by other geometry, andshades the pixel accordingly. It?s got nothing to dowith light at all, it?s purely a rendering trick thattends to look nice because generally in real life surfaces that are close together (like small cracks) will bedarker than surfaces that don?t have anything in front of them, because of shadows, dirt, etc. The AmbientOcclusion process though is approximating this result, it?s not simulating light bouncing around or goingthrough things. That?s why Ambient Occlusion still works when no lights are in the scene.Important: Only selected Objects will be calculated. All other visible Objects in the scene are taken intoaccount.Presets: Loads and saves Ambient Occlusion presets. Additional presets can be added or removedGlobal Illumination --> Shadow Quality: Defines the direct shadow quality of the Ambient Occlusion.5 Presets are Available:- Preview Quality- Low Quality- Medium Quality- High Quality- Highest QualityMin Distance: Sets the minimum distance where objects will be taken into account for the AmbientOcclusion calculation. This value defines total black areas where full occlusion takes place.Max Distance: Sets the maximum distance where objects will be taken into account or the AmbientOcclusion calculation. This value defines total white areas where no occlusion takes place.This value can also be seen as the maximum expansion of the virtual hemisphere.All numeric values represent mm as units.