I don´t get how to use AO with corona. I did found the AO-material, but I´ve no clue how to use it, because it´s always just black. My first idea was to put it into the self illu-slot, but in another thread someone said that this would be the worst thing one could do. So how do I enable AO in general (or is it already enabled?) and how do I get a AO-pass from corona?
And I know this is kinda OT, but which render setting do I need to change to get a better and more uniform illumination for interiors? Using the standard settings (PT+HD/PT+PT) produces noticeable shadow-blotches in darker areas.
If you want to render an AO pass you have two options:
-in render elements add a Corona_BRDF_AO pass
or
-in render elements ad a Corona_Texmap pass and set a AO-enabled material in its “texmap” slot
If you don’t want it on a separate pass create a material with CoronaAO map inserted in desired slot (for example diffuse colour).
About splotches in shadow areas: depending on your scene you can try increasing PT samples in HD Cache settings to about 1024 or 2048 or in “lights” section increasing Lights samples multiplier to 4-8.
Thanks for your replys. AO works fine as you described, maru. But I think I´ll stick to Mental Rays AO-pass for now, because it´s just so much faster.
And I´ll check my scene for any mesh- and/or material-erros, Rawalanche. But both, scene and mats, are really simple and straight forward. Increasing the light samples did helped though
If AO were desired (sometimes my office prefers a more CG/stylistic look) would you recommend using AO in material setups instead? Also, if doing an AO pass with the texmap, do lights need to be disabled/deleted like in mr?
Ravalanche. I found and find BRDF AO very useful in the type of work i’m doing. And existing as where it is right now doesn’t bother too much in my opinion. There is a lot more to cg outside the scope of arquitectural rendering where a BRDF AO pass can be used. I find most concerning and surprising that you guys are taking it out based on just the way you use it ( or not ) .
Why the hell is Corona AO pass so ridiculously complicated? I can’t even see any options for it in the render elements? Where is the shadow matte? shadow catcher is a pile of arse, and difficult to set up? Paying for this engine.
It has its uses. The AO debate gets covered every time a new render engine emerges and is easily one of the most pointless ones to go through. We are not all going for realism all the time (mind you, with commercial work this is not always by choice), and our way of using post processing should not dictate which render engine we use.
Aside from some lofty self righteous sense of whats “correct” why would Corona want to remove a functional useful tool? We use AO in about 60% of our shots, we’d be boned without it.
