bagginsbill opened this issue on Oct 25, 2007 · 273 posts
bagginsbill posted Tue, 18 August 2009 at 3:23 PM
The AO is the shadow. I'm not sure what you mean.
When there is more than one light source, the illumination at any given spot is the sum of the illumination caused by each light source. A shadow is nothing more than the attenuation of that light source due to surrounding geometry.
The AO shadow exists even if another light shines direclty into the same spot. That area below the ball is unable to see all the omni-directional ambient light, so it should be darker all round the ball. Very close to where the ball touches the ground, the contribution of IBL should be zero, even if a spotlight is shining in there. The spotlight does not cancel the fact that light from the sky is not going under the ball.
In Poser parlance AO is not a shadow. But in real life, the effect that AO is simulating is indeed a shadow.
Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)