Tutorial: Ambient Occlusion in Maya - by Alchemist101

[benclark]

damn you dennis

[beartraps]

Is there a way of generating an occlusion map from a normal mapped low poly instead of a high poly?

[benclark]

you can create cavity maps from a normal map using Xnormal. It won't have the same depth of information as an AO bake but its a quick solution

[beartraps]

The reason I ask is because I got some detail to my normal map with a converted bump to normal map overlay, not just a high poly. So when i bake my occlusion from that high poly it leaves out the newly created detail. Maybe just use that bump map to paint overlay occlusion in photoshop?

[wolfsage]

Originally Posted by dieone

Is there a way of generating an occlusion map from a normal mapped low poly instead of a high poly?

YES! Check this out;

Making of Varga

[[hP]]

Originally Posted by wolfsage

YES! Check this out;

Making of Varga

THAT is one badass link!

[Katana]

That was fantastic. Thank you.

[atulkatdare]

very helpful! thank you so much for posting!!

[RossC]

I've never used Ambient Occlusion before and this tutorial really helped me understand it. Nice work and thanks!

[3dnirvana]

Hello Benclark, Thanku so mach for the awesome tutorial. I have been in the process of discovering few tricks and techniques in baking an AO map. Presently im working on my Centurion M41 tanker, here is the link http://www.game-artist.net/forums/wo...an-tanker.html

The query Iam going through is that I have a set of totally 4 sets of uv maps, i.e I have broken down the entire tanker model in to 4 divisions since I couldn't accommodate them in 1 single map. Now if I happen to bake the AO.....should I bake them individually or entirely. If I happen to bake them individually, I might be losing a lot of depth details at the point of intersection between 2 adjacent faces or if I happen to bake them entirely, how would the uv's co-ordinate since its a set of 4 individual maps. Im in the process of trial and error streets......I would really appreciate if you suggest me with good tips.