Ever noticed that Ambient Occlusion doesn’t happen in the real world in lit areas? It’s more of a darkness thing… so why apply it everywhere?

With this Rendertree compound you have AO in darkness and that’s it. Simple!

Now….. can you spot the differences between these images below?

Diffuse pass, boring looking, no AO:

BAD — Sloppy AO that’s been applied everywhere: (notice how dirty it looks towards the center light)

GOOD — Shadow-aware AO, only exists where it should… in darkness:

Credit where credit is due; this method was originally pointed out by Guy Rabiller many years ago, back when our software was called a 3 letter word.