AO for area vs for detail

[Streetwise]

I routinely use an AO pass for area. Recently, I came across using a second AO pass for detail. I assume you set it up in a similar fashion, but what would the details look like? Just a smaller radius?

[LudvikKoutny]

You missed the time by one decade

[Streetwise]

Now that's very helpful.

[LudvikKoutny]

What I meant is that there is no point of using AO these days, especially if you do archviz. It's a workflow where you invest time and effort to create something additional that will make your renders look worse and less realistic.

AO was originally meant to be used with just constant ambient light to fake indirect shadows. Then it was used to enhance precision of very inaccurate irradiance caching GI solutions, like Mental Ray's final gather. But V-Ray's GI solution is good and already has enough indirect shadow detail, so if you slap another set fake indirect shadows on top of the real ones, you will make your spaces look dirty, and lose realistic saturation in corners.

That being said, if you for any reason have to go AO way (which you most likely don't), just use one AO, don't mix two. The more distance the AO has, the more realistic will it look. Sharp, strong, low distance AO will make your stuff look like cartoon.