Solver

This section contains options affecting AO calculation and its baking into a mesh.

Solver - VAOG offers 3 methods for calculating AO:

• Standard - This is default and the fastest solver. It is suitable for most meshes with smooth surfaces.

• Standard 2 Pass - Similar to the Standard solver, but with addition AO calculation pass, that allows detecting zones where vertices and surfaces may be very close to each other and because of it Standard solver may miss them:

Standard solver

Standard solver with 2 pass

• Volumetric - Designed specifically for lowpoly style and 'blocky' structure meshes:

Standard solver (incorrect AO in the corners)

Volumetric solver (better AO in the corners)

Ray Length - This is the length of a ray coming from the vertex in the direction of its normal vector. Any surfaces that are in the ‘hit’ range of this ray are included in the AO calculation. The more surfaces are inside this range, the more intense/detailed final AO value is. If ray 'hits' nothing, then AO for that vertex is not calculated and value of 1 is assigned to it.

Inside the Scene view AO rays can be displayed by enabling icon:

Displaying dependency of the Ray Length on the calculated AO

Inside Scene view rays are rendered for all vertices of a selected mesh inside VAOG editor window, or if no mesh is selected then for all meshes inside conversion list of the VAOG editor window.Rendering rays may have negative impact on the scene redraw if too much rays need to be rendered.

FOV - Field of view of the vertex. With higher value generated AO has more details, but also more unwanted polygons may be included in the calculation:

FOV size affecting ambient occlusion calculation

Interaction - By default, in the AO calculation is included only selected mesh, or if a gameObject contains hierarchy of multiple meshes, then also those meshes are participating in the AO calculation. All other scene objects are excluded.

By using Interaction option, can be chosen layers and scene meshes from those layers will become visible to the AO calculation of the selected mesh.

For example, on the image below left Torus has no interaction with the scene objects, and for the right Torus ground plane is visible in the calculation of AO.

Ground mesh affects AO calculation of the right Torus.

Intensity - Adjust AO intensity.

Use Smooth Normals - Instead of using mesh normals for calculating AO, it is re-generated with smooth angle.

Store Inside - Allows choosing mesh vertex buffer where calculated AO is saved:

Merge Mode - Defines how saving AO in the selected vertex buffer affects already existing data there: Replace it or multiply.