Anniebel opened this issue on Apr 04, 2007 · 23 posts
pjz99 posted Thu, 05 April 2007 at 3:04 AM
Then you are most of the way there! :) I think what is missing is to render at high enough quality so that Raytracing is enabled if you are using auto settings, or switch to Manual settings and simply check the box "Use Raytracing". I usually use 4-5 bounces, but a lot of people think 2 is OK. Be aware that with those settings, anything within 7 and 3/4 inches (Poser inches) will start making an Ambient Occlusion shadow, which may be a bit too much.
From Paul Kinnane's tutorial above:
Recommended Initial Settings
These settings are for when your Poser 6 preferences have the display units set to INCHES.
Eyewhite – max dist = 1, RayBias = 0.01
Skin – max dist = 3, RayBias = 0.4 (if the skin uses a displacement map, or the joints are severely bent, you will need to increase this to 0.5-0.6 to get rid of artifacts)
Clothing, wall, etc – max dist 5-50, RayBias = 0.5
Rendering with the AO node
Firstly, you MUST have ray-tracing on in your render settings (2 bounces is fine), and be using the FireFly renderer.
Shadows : You can use the AO in place of other scene shadowing, or in conjunction with traditional light shadowing or AO. For example, if you are doing a portrait render, you can switch off shadows, and have AO nodes on the eyewhite, nostrils and lips to get realistic shadowing. Or you can switch on shadows for one or more of the lights, and have them working together with the AO nodes.
Hair : It is not recommended to use AO nodes on hair. Also, I suggest unchecking the Visible in Ray Tracing check-box for any hair figures or props in the scene, since including hair in AO calculations takes a very long time. Use traditional depth mapped shadows for hair shadowing.
Light based AO : You can use light based AO together with AO nodes on materials, however it is recommended that you make the RayBias of the light AO approximately the same of the largest MaxDist you are using on an AO node on a material. This should ensure that the light and materials Ambient Occlusion doesn’t double-up.
One other handy note, AO is a very easy way to kill most nostril glow (apply AO to the Nostrils material group).