Repeating Textures & AO Maps...

mparis

I have what I hope is a simple question. I'm working on a scene with a lot of repeating textures, mostly concrete, but I'd like to apply a AO map to the environment. However, it's for an online game and memory is at a premium.

Most of the meshes are static and it's an indoor environment.

My thoughts on how to do this so far:

Memory Expensive Way:

• Repeating Texture Pass

• Unique AO map applied over the repeating textures on a separate UV channel.

• Lightmap for Shadow Pass

Slightly Less Expensive Way:

• Combine AO & Lightmap (Meaning the baked lighting for the scene) into a single map instead of separate ones.*

Is it typical to combine the AO and Lightmap, (Meaning the map with the baking lighting) together? Or is that a bad idea?

Thanks in advance for any help!

divi

if you already have the lightmap in there and can actually add stuff to it, why not? ambient occlusion is after all part of the lighting.

mparis

divi wrote: »

if you already have the lightmap in there and can actually add stuff to it, why not? ambient occlusion is after all part of the lighting.

I figured as much, lol, just thought I would confirm it's ok to do so.

Thank you.

Joshua Stubbles

yep, we combine all lighting into one map. Direct, bounce and AO.

mparis

Joshua Stubbles wrote: »

yep, we combine all lighting into one map. Direct, bounce and AO.

Thank you for the confirmation

Neox

divi wrote: »

if you already have the lightmap in there and can actually add stuff to it, why not? ambient occlusion is after all part of the lighting.

yes and no, basicly ao should only appear in the not directly lit parts of the world, the ambient lit parts as the name says so basicly if you want to do it right you should have it as an extrapass and mask it with the lightmap to enhance the shadowed parts and not dirt up the directly lit parts

mparis

Neox wrote: »

yes and no, basicly ao should only appear in the not directly lit parts of the world, the ambient lit parts as the name says so basicly if you want to do it right you should have it as an extrapass and mask it with the lightmap to enhance the shadowed parts and not dirt up the directly lit parts

I think I understand what you mean, would it be possible to fake the extra pass by just using layer styles in photoshop to have the AO only show in darker areas?

Joshua Stubbles

Neox wrote: »

yes and no, basicly ao should only appear in the not directly lit parts of the world, the ambient lit parts as the name says so basicly if you want to do it right you should have it as an extrapass and mask it with the lightmap to enhance the shadowed parts and not dirt up the directly lit parts

yeah, our compositing tool does that for us for the final output

mparis

Joshua Stubbles wrote: »

yeah, our compositing tool does that for us for the final output

Alright well I'm just going straight from Maya into Unity Engine with this so in that case should I just do the effect in photoshop then?

Neox

question is do you only use static lighting or also dynamic lighting? if its all static it should be easy to blend it together the right way in ps

mparis

Neox wrote: »

question is do you only use static lighting or also dynamic lighting? if its all static it should be easy to blend it together the right way in ps

As of this point almost all lighting will be static.

However we had planned to use a single dynamic light in the center of the scene to cast shadows on some moving platforms the environment will contain.

throttlekitty

Have you considered using vertex colors?

mparis

throttlekitty wrote: »

Have you considered using vertex colors?

For what portion?

The lightmap is necessary because the outer walls of the scene require more detailed lighting info than vertex coloring alone could provide.

Could you use vertex coloring to fake an AO effect?

Still seems like just adding it to the lightmap would be simplest at this point.

Is there any sort of dynamic vertex shadow effect that could be used to simulate shadows below the moving platforms?