User Tools

Site Tools


ambient_occlusion_maps_knald_1.2

Ambient Occlusion Maps

The Ambient Occlusion maps within Knald are generated on the fly from the Normal & Height Maps provided by The Integrator. They are adjustable in real time and produce extremely high quality and clean results that rival baked AO at 600+ rays.

You can also generate Ambient Occlusion from high to low polygonal meshes via The Baker.

Image, Mesh & Baker Ambient Occlusion Settings

The Image Ambient Occlusion Group's Settings


Image Ambient Occlusion














AO Scale: The strength of the image based AO, irrespective of the Global Intensity slider.

The Mesh Ambient Occlusion Group's Settings


Mesh Ambient Occlusion












AO Scale: The strength of the image based AO, irrespective of the Global Intensity slider.

Activate Mesh AO This check box is a toggle to enable and disable Low Poly Ambient Occlusion via an imported mesh.

Weighting: A choice between different methods of occluder weighting.

  • Cosine: Each sample is weighted by it's cosine to the normal.
  • Uniform Clamped: A uniform weighting of visible directions gives the percentage of visible surface area on the hemisphere.
  • Uniform Unclamped: Corresponds to projection of visibility onto the first spherical harmonic band L=0.
The difference between the three weighting methods for AO within Knald. Cosine (left), Uniform Clamped (middle) & Uniform Unclamped (right).

Opacity: The level of opacity used when mixing the Low Poly Ambient Occlusion with the image based Ambient Occlusion.

Rays: This slider is used to determine the number of samples in a discrete evaluation of the integral across the half sphere for diffuse outgoing radiance with a constant radiance field with a minimum of 256 and maximum of 8192 rays being available.

  • A higher number or rays will increase the quality of the Mesh Ambient Occlusion at the cost of speed.
  • We do not recommend going below a value of 512 rays as this can cause banding to appear in the map.
  • A value of 1024-2048 or above should be perfect for production.

Bias: A bias value based upon mesh density. A value of 10 should be good in most situations.

The Baker Ambient Occlusion Group's Settings


Baker Ambient Occlusion











Weighting: A choice between different methods of occluder weighting.

  • Cosine: Each sample is weighted by it's cosine to the normal.
  • Uniform Clamped: A uniform weighting of visible directions gives the percentage of visible surface area on the hemisphere.
  • Uniform Unclamped: Corresponds to projection of visibility onto the first spherical harmonic band L=0.

Ignore Backface Hits Checking this option ignores backface ray hits, which is useful in instances where you are using floating geometry on the High Poly mesh.

Rays: This slider is used to determine the number of samples in a discrete evaluation of the integral across the half sphere for diffuse outgoing radiance with a constant radiance field with a minimum of 256 and maximum of 8192 rays being available.

  • A higher number or rays will increase the quality of the Mesh Ambient Occlusion at the cost of speed.
  • We do not recommend going below a value of 512 rays as this can cause banding to appear in the map.
  • A value of 1024-2048 or above should be perfect for production.

Bias: A bias value based upon mesh density. A value of 10 should be good in most situations.

Ambient Occlusion
ambient_occlusion_maps_knald_1.2.txt · Last modified: 2017/05/23 03:49 (external edit)