Ambient Occlusion kinda works actually (SSAO)

Dictator93

Hey all and UWE (max specifically),
Just thought I would say that I managed to get SSAO to be forced into the game through using Nvidia control panel but it for some reason flickers on and off. When it is on, it looks really great and adds a subtle definition to crevices and drop shadows to objects that otherwise may not have them, but alas it turns on and off. It also has a pretty high performance penalty in its higherquality settings (100 fps to around 40). Here are the pics (sorry for the size and file size, just wanted to make a point).

With AO
<img src="http://www.abload.de/img/withz7k8s.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />

Without AO
<img src="http://www.abload.de/img/withoutb5kri.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />

Any comments from UWE or the community are appreciated. Just thought this was neat.

Hugh

That's pretty interesting Dictator - It seems to be adding some depth to the Marine model but perhaps an in-game screenshot would reveal more of what the Nvidia implementation gives?

Kouji_San

So what does it do, make dark areas darker (clicking between images)

fmpone

It must be a very subtle effect, I can see some differences on the wall panel model in the left center of the picture, but its incredibly mild

Kouji_San

Check out the wire things on the floor behind the railing and behind the marine, it's darker/has more depth...

IeptBarakat

Wow, I like the way the marine looks with it. Seems to give things more life.

ScardyBob

The effect seems barely noticeable to me. I had to zoom out in my browser and stare at both for a while just to see any difference. Maybe some in-game shots (try atrium on summit) would show a more significant change?

Dghelneshi

Well, since SSAO is a simple post-processing effect afaik, it shouldn't be too hard to get it to work right. But I would rather see more sophisticated AO methods instead of this quick and dirty stuff. SSAO tends to make shadows where none should be and has some other problems with more complex geometry and the generated shadow blobs being too big. This will have to wait though, since there are lots of more important issues.