Ambient Occlusion Question.

mospheric

I have started to learn UDK a few weeks ago. I'm trying to get a specific look to a scene I'm building. I want there to be minimal lights, with all the details mostly being seen with ambient occlusion. All of the diffuse will be white. I want the scene to look dream-like and surreal. It will be vague, but the objects will be familiar enough by the details created from the ambient occlusion.

I've spent the last week trying to figure out how to achieve this look to no avail. I originally wanted it to be dynamic, with characters possibly walking around, though I could not find a shader to do this. So I've narrowed the scope down to just static models.

Is there a shader out there for UDK that does this? Is this something that UDK can do naturally? Thanks for any other comments/ideas.

[Also excited that there is a separate UDK section to Polycount!]

Oniram

well you can toss in a small value to the emissive part of your material to give it its own ambiance, and then go into the postprocess chain and dial up the AO from there. though i think that the further you spread it, the worse the quality gets. how big is this scene supposed to be?

mospheric

The scene is just one room. It's more of a visual concept I'm going for. It's not really meant to be playable or anything. Plus it's good exercise for me to learn UDK.

I thought the postprocess chain only controls SSAO? The look of SSAO is not what I'm going for.

mospheric

Took lots of fiddling around, but I finally got what I wanted to work. It was a post-process chain. Just had to adjust lots of settings and turn off many more XD. Only downside is that bloom is not as strong with the occlusion turned up... but I guess that's natural. Happy I got the look I want!

Also thanks Oniram for suggesting to add some emissive.

Oniram

np. mind posting up a screenshot?

mospheric

Sure no problem. I'm building a scene that is from a zombies perspective. We always see the chaotic, post apocalyptic world of the humans (especially when battling zombies) but what is it like for them? Since they are simple and only want brains, I imagine their world is serene and calm. There only objective is a glowing brain.

I do have these weird artifacts from using the post processes. I don't know if that's natural until you do a production build. I'll have to figure it out as I go I guess.