SSAO not working?

Dan Allardyce

I've been trying to get SSAO working in my scene and I just can't. From what I've been able to surmise, you need to have a post process volume and turn on either Ambient Cubemap and/or the Ambient Occlusion setting by adjusting their radius/intensity, but it ain't happening. I also tried turning on AO in the Lightmass settings with similar results. What am I doing wrong?

Obscura

Lightmass and SSAO are 2 different things because one gives dynamic static shadows/AO and the another gives a dynamic Screen space based post process effect. Anyways, If it doesn't appearing in your scene for some reason, search "UTPostProecess_Console" in the content browser, create a copy from it into your package, and name it as you want,and assign this newly created ppchain to view->world properties->World post process chain. Then If you open your PPchain, you'll be able to set the SSAO settings, and the changes will appear instantly in the viewport too.

Dan Allardyce

Would this process be the same for UE4? I can't find UTpostprocess_console in the content browser.

Obscura

Oh so its UE4...Sorry I missed this. Then actually you don't want the ssao because it would destroy the quality that you want.SSAO is a bit outdated compared to UE4's solutions, I'd use the AO input of the material to use the baked ao map.Maybe you already used it...If you look at the SSAO thing then you can see it puts a "halo" effect around your object which isn't really realistic. Still want it? Then maybe you can find a pre-made post-process ao thing from one of the examples that came with ue, or you can make a new post-process effect.

Froyok

AO textures and SSAO are only draw in shadows, not in plain light.

This means normal map details will affect the results. In UE4 the effect is applied to the AmbientCubemap. It doesn't affect the direct lighting because here we use shadow mapping.

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Rendering/LightingAndShadows/AmbientOcclusion/index.html


If you want your AO texture to be visible, multiply it by your diffuse and plug the result in your base color input inside your material. Note however this is an incorrect behavior regarding PBR materials.