which app produces the best ambient occlusion bakes?

Ruz

I have heard good things about vray bakes, but don't know a lot about it
I generally use xnormal, but was curious what everyone else was doing.
my issues with AO bakes are that often they are a lacking the finer details.
If you add a ground plane then you get a bit more, but then its a very top down directional bake, which is not always what you want.

also is it always best to get ao from the highres/low res or can you get away with a solution that utilizes the low poly+normal map?

Ace-Angel

AO aren't supposed to pick up finer details willy nilly, you will need to either change around the settings of your baker or instead generate a cavity map.

peanut™

I use 3dsmax, and the sandwich method ie=(ground plane + celling and a ambient light) for my AO, i haven't tried it over Maya so far, maybe i should.

Ruz

well perhaps i am hoping for too much from AO, but I would still like to hear what others use and see a few comparisons. Also depending on settings you can sometimes get a nice range of detail from AO maps
I have tried many different kinds over the years, including cavity maps, but I recently saw some really nice vray stuff whiah was awesome, but can't find the link now
suppose the main choices are
vray dirt,
vray complete map( a lighting map?)
mental ray AO,
3dsmax light tracer
xnormal

Ruz

peanut - I had n't tried it with a ceiling , I normally just use the ground plane, but yeah I will give that a try now too.

peanut™

Ruz wrote: »

I had n't tried it with a ceiling.

You should, and you can also use an ambient light and move it around for some shadow/details/contrast, a domelight in some cases is also cool.

Don't forget that an AO map is the hardest thing to render, but once mastered it pays off really well.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Ambient+Occlusion&oq=Ambient+Occlusion&gs_l=youtube.12..0l10.18013.18013.0.20003.1.1.0.0.0.0.80.80.1.1.0...0.0...1ac.1.11.youtube.76QvQrs10l8

St.Sabath

If you are using Maya try this script.Works perfect,really good bakes.
Source the script ,and run it by putting domeGI; in your MEL command line
I always leave the settings at default,then hit the "Let there be Light" button at the bottom.Group all of the created dome and lights,so you can move the thing around easily,then place your object in the center of it(i Saved out a scene with the dome ,so i can grab it whenever i want),and bake!
Oldie but a Goldie!

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/domegi-mel/description#tabs

Ruz

never actually tried a maya bake, will have a look at that too. thanks for the ideas guys

pior

I think it would be cool to share a mesh (low and high), that way everyone could test it out and compare results !

I personally use XNormal - it took me a while to find my favorite settings, but now that I have them I don't need anything else. Will post more info later ...

VeeJayZee

Try Knald. Its on beta and its the best software so far that produces a good quality result and its Ultra fast. You have to have a good cleaned-up Normal bakes though, but that is easier to do Its lightweight, intuitive and infinitely fast.

But if you want to control the shadow details of AO yeah, I stick to the sandwich or dome method but its too clunky and a hassle.

cptSwing

I think it depends.. with Mentalray in Max I can get nice and chunky/over-the-top AO that I can't seem to acheive with xNormal, ever.

Farfarer

I tend to use modo for all of my AO needs.

xNormal in a pinch, but I find modo gives much nicer results.

Ark

XSI's is pretty fast and clean.

Visceral

Im in love with Mudbox atm. Faster than Xnormal tbh and produce a satisfying result.

fr0gg1e

Topogun.
EOT. =P

CheeseOnToast

Hey Mike, have you tried turning the bias down in Xnormal to something like 0.0001?
It makes quite a difference to the results from the default, in my experience.

AlecMoody

Quality for render time I used to really like vray dirt. I make sure all my projections are being done in the same application (usually xnormal now) so everything lines up so I usually end up either baking xnormal AO or zbrush ao as vertex colors. Zbrush ao is cleaner, faster, and renders the small details well.

leleuxart

If I'm doing a high-to-low bake, I just use xNormal and bake out cavity, AO, and normal at the same time. The AO from xNormal has been pretty good for me, especially since you can adjust the values before it's saved.

If I'm painting my own normals, I just use nDo2. Same thing with xNormal, I just create a normal, cavity, and AO, which nDo2 lets you adjust them as well. nDo2 has the best normal > cavity/ normal > AO I've worked with.

Sometimes I'll use the xNormal PS plugin too for some simple stuff, usually just generated from a texture.

Ruz

Alec Moody - have you got any examples of vray dirt to show us, that would be great to see.

yeah Nick, my settings are already on 0.0001 may be 1 more zero actually.
I do get nice enough bakes from xnormal, but even mudbox seems to have a really nice clean looking bake, similar to the one I saw for vray

leleuxart - don't you find though that the more bakes you have to do, the more you have to rebake if you have to correct a mesh, then also the more you have to composite in pshop. can be a real time killer.( I tend to correct my meshes a lot as part of my working process)

It would be good to get a nice bake from the final low poly + normal map , which you can do with vray and also mental ray. can't do this with the scanline in max though
This way you can avoid having to bake out everything separately but I guess the quality would not be quite as a good or clean as a geometry bake ie hi lo geometry.
It looking more like a 'lighting map' than a proper AO

Pior that would be cool, if someone could suggest maybe 1 techinal looking model and then 1 organic, maybe a face or some cloth.