I must be getting old and stupid, I have researched the web, but the answer alludes me. Where within the Poser 11 Physical surface root node does one account for ambient occlusion

Hello Chris,

Why would you like to add an AO to the PhysicalSurface? It does not need AO.

AO is an ol style cheat from the period before IDL+GC. (in fact, when rendering with IDL, AO is ignored) And SuperFly is a true PBR render engine, does all light calculations inside, and does not need nor uses AO at all.

Thanks for the reply, I purchased recently Algorithmic Live and from everything I have read when using IDL, AO becomes ever more important, I'm getting old and having trouble keeping up with the constant changes

Hi Chris

In Poser10 and PP2014 => When rendering with IDL, all AO nodes on light are ignored, because the ambient occusion is calculated inside the IDL calculations.

In Poser 10 and PP2014 => Rendering WIHOUT IDL? => Then you need the AO node on the lights.

For PBR render engines (like SuperFly) all ambient occulsion calculations are done inide. => That is why there is not a slot to load an AO node.

Best regards, Tony

Thanks, I appreciate the info

In case you refer to the AO slot in the FireFly root node used with IDL for light transmitter. There is a emission node for that in PBR.

i meaned the ambient slot.. pressed return without reading my post;)

Ah, no.

=> Ambient occlusion is diffusing existing incoming light back into the scene.

=> The Ambient node "adds" light. => That are 2 completely different things.

Say, I have a light that shines on an object. The object absorbs some of the light and diffuses the rest back into the scene. => That is ambient occlusion when 2 objects are close together.

The ambient node "adds" light and can be used to make TV- or Computer sreens emit "new" light. Or to make Neon lights emit new light.

2 completely different things.

But : Read this : If you have a nonsensical material, such as using the old AO node, Superfly will ignore that node when it renders; after all, Superfly inherently takes AO into account, so using the old Firefly cheat doesn't make sense.

Hello Chris

Algorithmic do use AO but as an input to their smart material generator and is baked into the materials when exported.

For a new project I load the obj and then select the bake function which will generate the AO map for me. The smart materials will automatically pick up the map.

BTW - Christophe Desse's channel on Youtube is worth a visit if you're interested in seeing practical demos of using Substance Painter/Designer.

chris1972 posted at 9:29AM Sat, 28 November 2015 - #4241187

Thanks for the reply, I purchased recently Algorithmic Live and from everything I have read when using IDL, AO becomes ever more important, I'm getting old and having trouble keeping up with the constant changes

Important when you are baking textures not when you are rendering with an engine that does global illumination and not just fakes it.