Vertex Baked AO

[BrokenPillar]

I recently learned a new technique for applying AO to an object by baking it into the vertex color in 3DS Max, and was happy to discover that LE already supports it. The images I have posted below are in the editor and have no textures or materials applied to them, and they are not using any post processing shaders like SSAO. There is only an ambient light in the scene set at a value of one. All of the color and the AO are baked into the vertices. The idea is that now I can use higher res tileable textures, and not need a secondary texture/UV set for AO.

 

This may already be a commonly used and known about technique, but hey, it's new to me so I thought I would share in case anyone else was interested in different ways to achieve AO.

 

 

 

Here is the top right image again with all of the same settings in the editor, only without any Baked Verts:

 

 

Here's a short video as well:

My linkhttp://vimeo.com/9745532

[Rick]

Can you show us without this technique on the same model to show the difference it makes?

[BrokenPillar]

Sure. I'll post some images later tonight when I get a second.

[BrokenPillar]

I edited my first post with a comparison that has no baked verts.

[Rick]

WOW!

[Jardar]

very interesting

 

It would be nice to know exactly what you are doing and how it is done!

Tutorials, man, tutorials!

[BrokenPillar]

I'll try to post a better description/tutorial of the process in the next few days.

[Canardia]

If it's only vertex colors, it could be done in realtime too.

[BrokenPillar]

I'm not sure what you mean. Those images are already in the editor in real time, unless you are saying that it could be done procedurally in the engine at run time without pre-baking the information in a 3D modeling tool, which would be cool to see, but I suppose the trade off would be that the lighting calculation wouldn't be able to be as accurate or complex.

[BrokenPillar]

I was able to put together a tutorial document over the weekend that explains the process. I don't make a lot of tutorials, so I apologize in advance if it is hard to follow or not very well explained. It is intended for 3DS Max users, but I suppose the basic idea would be possible in most major 3D modeling tools. It would probably just be about finding the interface tools to do it. Anyway, here it is:

 

VertexBakedAO.pdf