I'm doing a steampunk render with a human, a set, and the Aikobot (A3), and while my skin shader python worked fine on the human, my AO Studio python -- to add AO nodes -- just refuses to do anything on the scene. 

I'm assuming that the half-a-billion tiny parts of the Aikobot might have something to do with it, but AO won't even add nodes to the human. 

Does anyone know if there's some kind of upper limit on how many "pieces" can be in a scene before AO just gives up? 

Or is there something blaringly obvious that I'm missing. 

The AO editor worked fine on the human figure alone -- in another file. But in the Aikobot scene... 

Ah, there's the rub! 

If anyone has any ideas of how to solve this, I'm willing to listen. 

I'm not an expert on renders by any means (getting better constantly), but -- like most folk -- I try to stick to my tried-and-true methods. 

Which, in this case, aren't working. 

Your collective wisdom is appreciated in advance. 

Thanks.

I don't have the Aikobot figure installed at the moment so I can't take a look at it.

Do the pieces have different body part names than a normal figure.  Most AO scripts I've used use the basic body parts like teeth, lips, face, cornea, ect.

When you launch the script, do you get a Tkinter GUI that allows you to pick and choose what you want to apply AO to or is it an auto script that just applies AO to all parts of a selected figure?

Who is the vendor?

Let's start with what version of Poser - what SR? Poser 7 SR3 has very good light-based AO and doing it for each material is generally not helpful enough to justify the effort. Poser 8 and up have IDL and the realism from that is far superior to AO.

Do you mean you are using Render Studio from RDNA to add the AO?  If so. the advanced AO script has issues with materials that already have an AO node plugged into them sometimes.  No clue why, I am not a material room guru, just know I have run into it a time or three.   I have Aikobot on my storage drive will have a look when I get back from taking my little ones to school.  Guess I'll need to reinstall A3 too lol.

Okay, the facts are:

Yes, Render Studio's Advanced AO editor from RDNA.

Poser 7 - which does okay on its own, but...

The aikobot has a lot of pieces with strange names -- at least, I assume that's what all the pieces are when they come up on the AO editor -- there's a boatload of them.

The editor launches, and then -- in theory -- I get to check off which pieces of the whole scene I want to use the AO on.  Works fine on the human figure alone, but with the aikobot in the scene, it won't allow me to check anything.  (Well, I can check things, but then it doesn't apply them -- and the "check all" function doesn't work.)

I suspect the aikobot has some fancy stuff going on with reflections, transparencies, etc. -- though I'm no expert on any of that.

I'll attach one version of the render below, in case it helps to see it.

Really, I'd just like to add some AO shading on bits of the human figure where clothes meet skin, etc.

Thanks, everyone.

Didn't answer which SR. You just said Poser 7. Poser 7 SR 1 and SR 3 are very different programs in the renderer.

I have downloaded SR3, and I believe I have installed it.

Let me check...

Okay, I'm not sure, as the About file says:

7.0.4.220

Wouldn't it have been easier if it said "service release 3?"