The Ambient Occlusion Dialog Box

Scene > Ambient Occlusion

Settings

Save Current

Saves the current setting.

Load from Node

Loads the ambient occlusion settings from the selected geometry node. Using this method, you can retrieve the settings with which the ambient occlusion is calculated.

Load Settings

Provides a list with the saved settings to select one of them.

Delete Settings

Provides a list with the saved settings to delete one of them.

Direct Illumination

Shadow Quality

Defines the direct shadow quality of the Ambient Occlusion. Six presets are available:

  • Preview Quality: 8×8 hemisphere samples (per vertex)

  • Low Quality: 16×16 hemisphere samples

  • Medium Quality: 32×32 hemisphere samples

  • High Quality: 48×48 hemisphere samples

  • Highest Quality: 64×64 hemisphere samples

  • Ultra High Quality: 128×128 hemisphere samples

Minimum Distance

Sets the minimum distance of objects to be taken into account for the Ambient Occlusion calculation. This value defines black areas where full occlusion takes place.

Maximum Distance

Sets the maximum distance of objects to be taken into account or the Ambient Occlusion calculation. This value defines white areas where no occlusion takes place. This value can also be seen as the maximum expansion of the virtual hemisphere.

Classic AO

This is the default setting. Creates the common Ambient Occlusion shadow texture. This is independent of light direction and takes the mutual occlusion of visible geometry objects into account. Shadows are calculated based on distance. The ambient occlusion is computed in real-time, including during navigation and running animations. Therefore, it supports interactivity but decreases performance.

Shadow from Scene Lights
Creates an Ambient Occlusion shadow texture that takes all shadows of active lights from the scene and the HDR into account.
Light Baking
Shadows and light information are stored for each vertex. It replaces the HDR lighting after baking. The use of this kind of texture increases real-time performance immensely for static scenes. Later changes to geometry objects, for example, through transformation, do not influence the displayed shadows.
Clear All

Deletes the Ambient Occlusion calculation of the whole scene.

Clear Active

Deletes the Ambient Occlusion on the selected geometry. All numeric values represent millimeters as units. Important: the total calculation time depends on the complexity of the scene and of the chosen Shadow Quality Preset.

Indirect Illumination

The Indirect Illumination checkbox enables an extra calculation of indirect light bounces which increases the quality of the final result.

Enable

Enables/disables the indirect illumination mode.

Quality

Sets the quality of indirection. The higher the values, the better the results.

  • Preview Quality: 8×8 samples

  • Low Quality: 16×16 samples

  • Medium Quality: 24×24 samples

  • High Quality: 32×32 samples

  • Highest Quality: 48×48 samples

Indirections

The number of indirections defines the number of calculated light bounces. The default value is one -so only one light bounce is calculated.

Important: higher values induce better quality but increase the calculation time.

Enable Color Bleeding

Color bleeding enables the transfer of color between near-by objects, caused by the colored reflection of the indirect illumination option. Color bleeding causes a white wall close to a red wall to appear pink because it receives red light from the red wall.

Override Material Color

Overrides the material color of the occlusion.

Color

Deletes the Indirect Illumination on the selected geometry.

Clear All

Deletes the Indirect Illumination calculation of the whole scene.

Clear Active

Deletes the Indirect Illumination on the selected geometry.

Subdivision

Subdivides the existing polygon mesh into smaller triangles to calculate the ambient occlusion more precisely. Turn this option on to avoid ragged edges on shadow illustrations. This feature is helpful when NURBS data for retessellation is not available but a refined mesh is required. Subdividing generates more complex objects. Use it only when required. Subdivide Geometry (edit menu from context menu of scenegraph) provides more settings to control this process.

Enable

Enables/disables the subdivision mode.

Quality

Enabling the subdivision checkbox causes geometries to be refined during the Ambient Occlusion calculation process. Extra vertices are inserted into the meshes. It is possible to get smoother results on the geometry. Three presets are available:

  • Low Quality: subdivide up to two times if the difference in intensities between the vertices of an edge is above the intensity threshold

  • Medium Quality: subdivide up to two times if the difference in intensities between the vertices of an edge, or the edge midpoint of the triangle edge is above the intensity threshold

  • High Quality: subdivide up to four times if the difference in intensities between the vertices of an edge or the edge midpoint is above the intensity threshold

Minimum edge length

Defines the threshold of the subdivision. If the length of an edge between two vertices is below the defined value, it is not subdivided and no added vertices are added.

Intensity threshold

Sets the threshold of intensity values of two vertices, to force a subdivision of the triangle edge.

Caution: enabling this feature increases calculation time and also increases the polygon count of the scene.

Calculate All

Calculates the ambient occlusion for all visible and selected nodes and their childNodes.

Calculate Missing

Calculates the ambient occlusion for all missing visible and selected nodes and their childNodes

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