Rendering with the ambient occlusion method

Module(s): Animation

Ambient occlusion is a shading technique you can use together with the rendering method of global illumination. Ambient occlusion produces realistic shadows in a relatively short period of time. Another advantage of this technique is that it emphasizes details by applying shadows to edges and corners.

It goes without saying that you cannot produce physically correct results within a short period of computing time. However, the result is usually so good that you do not need to render the scene using one of the compute-intensive rendering methods.

Note: If you want to produce physically correct results, there is no way around the compute-intensive rendering methods illuminating the scene globally and correctly.

To render an image using ambient occlusion

1. Click Render (How).
   

   Activate Render in one of the following ways

   • Menu bar: Create Presentation Animation

   • Keyboard: F2

   • Toolbar: Create
   • Palette: Tools Create area in the following module(s):

   Animation

   • Shortcut menu: Navigation Mode selected - Right mouse button

   The Render palette opens.

2. In the General settings area, select the Ambient occlusion option.

   Note: This setting also applies when you record a movie using the Render calculation method.

3. If you want, you can define more parameters for ambient occlusion.

   To do this, go to the Quality area and click the Edit button to the right of Advanced settings.

4. Render the image.