This is pretty cool, as I was just figuring this out the other day – what do you do when you have transparency textures and you want to do an ambient occlusion from the scene… Ashraf Aiad shows us exactly what to do with a quick Autodesk Maya tutorial on building ambient occlusions when your textures have transparencies associated.
if you are using ambient occlusion as a render pass for compositing, this would still be an incorrect way to use ambient occlusion. Note that in the example render there is a light in the upper right corner, yet the AO pass is just as dark on the lit side as the the non lit areas.
http://mentalraytips.blogspot.com/2008/11/joy-of-little-ambience.html
I see what you are saying, and you are right! I think the “take away” from Ashman’s tutorial was more meant for the shader itself and not so much the AO process though! – lesta.
True. I just find it odd that in just about every AO tutorial – be it using 3d software or in post, setting up the shader, rendering, etc – no one ever seems to mention that using a global occlusion pass is wrong.
thats a great opportunity for a tutorial! It is our responsibility to teach so crap doesn’t get passed down as habits… especially someone as talented as you dood. tutorial!