01-15-2017, 06:43 PM
Thanks, those help a lot. So here are mine...
Without AO - in 'solid' mode (texture mode without a texture is just pure white). Note that materials are applied here, but the 'Diffuse' has been turned to pure white and intense. If you bake AO with the 'normalized' button ticked, it forces it to ignore the materials, so you don't have to remove materials to bake AO (so the internet tells me...).
<a class="ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image" href="<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_2017_01/WithoutAO1.jpg.a6a018d5348324d0631afc71a840cc4c.jpg" data-fileid="998">[img]<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_2017_01/WithoutAO1.thumb.jpg.236d11e981345bcc5b35f434c49a3391.jpg[/img]</a>
And with AO - in 'texture mode' so you can see how it fits.
<a class="ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image" href="<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_2017_01/WithAO.jpg.a4c6c7ebc1d305e844abcbf9c73e2621.jpg" data-fileid="1000">[img]<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_2017_01/WithAO.thumb.jpg.e7bea48c3ef3746180e2a06f0bf3adec.jpg[/img]</a>
The solid gray in blender is still darker than in yours, not sure if that makes much of a difference but I have made it as 'white' as I know how. Removing materials will actually make the solid building darker.
I have not inverted this AO map, and it was unwrapped using the 'Smart UV Project' unwrap option.
My bake settings were - Margin 10px, Samples 10, distance 10m. I have not tried changing any of these settings to see what difference it makes.
I think the UV unwrap was actually the most important change I made between this AO and the terrible ones of earlier attempts. Using the 'Smart UV Project' option keeps the correct proportion of all faces, where as I did try the 'Unwrap' and 'Lightmap Pack' options before. 'Unwrap' seems to result in a lot of overlapping faces in the UV map, while 'Lightmap' makes everything a nice even square. It fits it all in, but when the whole oblong face is reduced to a tiny square, any detail is lost and what should be a small shadow either doesn't show up, or ends up covering half the face in dark shadow. I did not change the finer details in the 'Smart UV Project' UI, because I have no idea what they mean!
How much of an effect does the AO have on the lighting of the building in game? I've noticed with a pure white AO, certain crops are far too dark during the sun periods and far too light during the rain periods. Will a good AO even this out?
