AO multiply in PS question

MrOneTwo

I noticed this harsh edge when I multiply my AO map baked in Xnormal. Is it some math thingy caused by not enough bits per channel ? Can I remove it somehow or is it something I have to live with ?

SsSandu_C

Can you post an image with the ao as it was baked? Is that 100% zoom?

MrOneTwo

Its about 150% zoom. Here is the same piece but only AO. I baked it in Xnormal with 256 rays. In raw AO bake you can see some things that can caused it but I blurred this AO a bit in the first post. I also noticed it changes depending on opacity of the AO in psd file. I will try to make higher quality bake in Xnormal.

Kurt Russell Fan Club

You're seeing colour banding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_banding) because you're lightly blending a subtle gradient over another colour. You can reduce it by adding some slight noise to the gradient image (your AO) before you multiply.

Racer445

i wouldn't use noise, i'd use surface blur to try and smooth any banding out. ultimately though, once textured the issue is probably going to be eliminated anyway.

MrOneTwo

I tried with higher quality bake but it actually doesn't matter... which makes sense since You explained how it works. Pretty interesting stuff. Didn't know about dithering. Tried with some noise and tried with surface blur. Noise makes it way better but it introduces... well, noise. Will texture gun I'm making and then will find some compromise. If Racer says it won't be a problem I suppose There maybe won't be any need of compromise. Thanks for help guys!

Stromberg90

As racer said, pretty sure it won't be seen once textured, it was even hard to see it now :P

Ace-Angel

I honestly can't see without really trying to notice it, let alone textured, spec'ed, normaled, etc. in the final asset.

Computron

Ace-Angel wrote: »

I honestly can't see without really trying to notice it, let alone textured, spec'ed, normaled, etc. in the final asset.

Don't forget compressed to shit!

MrOneTwo

Yeah but still bothered me ;p Learned few things either way so it was worth the trouble. Thanks