Maya Ambient Occlusion is too bright

[NicolusBuck]

Hi,

I am rendering some of my models using Mental Ray Ambient Occlusion but my problem is the render images are too bright. :( I changed the values but the result is same. Here are some of the renders :-

https://s31.postimg.org/ld9mgahvv/image.png
https://s32.postimg.org/6o8344j9x/Hippo_3.png

I Googled it but couldn't find any proper solution. :furious:

So why my occlusion renders are so bright. The scene has default lights. I don't know why I am getting so bright renders. Hope you will help me to figure it out.

Thanks :)

[stwert]

Ambient occlusion doesn't use lights, and instead is a system to create shadowing in areas where light wouldn't directly strike as much. So all it does for a given point on your surface is to "look around" for nearby surfaces which would darken that point. In your ambient occlusion attributes, you can reduce the Bright attribute (whitest possible point) to a light gray, or lighten the Dark attribute (blackest possible point) to a dark grey.

But better would be perhaps to put a big poly plane over your characters (out of view) to create a darkening influence, and add a ground plane too. You can also play with the spread and max distance (0 is infinite) to adjust the AO look.

And best would be to actually combine your ambient occlusion render with a diffuse render with some actual lights, maybe even an HDR image as an IBL sphere.