Corners Don't Look Like That: Regarding Screenspace Ambient Occlusion (2012)
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Re: Corners Don't Look Like That: Regarding Screenspace Ambient Occlusion (2012)
#2SSAO really is awful but it’s the best performing AO we could get for a long time afaik. It’s such a hallmark of 00s and 10s rendering that I laugh every time I see it in a modern release. There are some new solutions hitting the space, I believe RTGI/PT inherently handles AO, and there is even a new method called ‘FidelityFX CACAO’ which does look considerably more realistic. Things are improving… slowly.
Re: Corners Don't Look Like That: Regarding Screenspace Ambient Occlusion (2012)
#3> https://nothings.org/gamedev/ssao/IMG_0059.JPG
i wonder if this is on purpose to avoid this illusion where i cant tell if im looking at a convex or concave just from three lines
Re: Corners Don't Look Like That: Regarding Screenspace Ambient Occlusion (2012)
#4> https://nothings.org/gamedev/ssao/IMG_0059.JPG i wonder if this is on purpose to avoid this illusion where i cant tell if im looking at a convex or concave just from three lines
Yeah, something the article doesn't mention is that videogames have to overcompensate with things that provide the illusion of depth because the viewer is missing their usual stereoscopic vision. The game is already at a disadvantage, and players need to be able to read scenes quickly to play the game effectively.
Re: Corners Don't Look Like That: Regarding Screenspace Ambient Occlusion (2012)
#5I find this very interesting. I have implemented AO myself and understood that its physically inaccurate (it should really be radiosity presence, not ambient occlusion), but have believed the results to look realistic. Or rather; better than flatly lit, which makes geometry hard to understand.
Thank you for these photographs! It would be awesome to have a CG benchmark like this (geometry + light properties) that we could compare to. I'm sure this exists already but. Very neat!
Re: Corners Don't Look Like That: Regarding Screenspace Ambient Occlusion (2012)
#6> https://nothings.org/gamedev/ssao/IMG_0059.JPG i wonder if this is on purpose to avoid this illusion where i cant tell if im looking at a convex or concave just from three lines
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Re: Corners Don't Look Like That: Regarding Screenspace Ambient Occlusion (2012)
#7I agree with his overall point, but I would point out: realism is not usually the point, the point is to look good. The problem with realism is once you get past "wow the computer can do that now", it's not very interesting -- most of reality is pretty dull looking!
Re: Corners Don't Look Like That: Regarding Screenspace Ambient Occlusion (2012)
#8> https://nothings.org/gamedev/ssao/IMG_0059.JPG i wonder if this is on purpose to avoid this illusion where i cant tell if im looking at a convex or concave just from three lines
Yeah, something the article doesn't mention is that videogames have to overcompensate with things that provide the illusion of depth because the viewer is missing their usual stereoscopic vision. The game is already at a disadvantage, and players need to be able to read scenes quickly to play the game effectively.
I'd also wonder about the average display equipment in use, the environment they're viewing in, and versus what our eyes are capable of.
Re: Corners Don't Look Like That: Regarding Screenspace Ambient Occlusion (2012)
#9> https://nothings.org/gamedev/ssao/IMG_0059.JPG i wonder if this is on purpose to avoid this illusion where i cant tell if im looking at a convex or concave just from three lines
Yeah, something the article doesn't mention is that videogames have to overcompensate with things that provide the illusion of depth because the viewer is missing their usual stereoscopic vision. The game is already at a disadvantage, and players need to be able to read scenes quickly to play the game effectively.
> videogames have to overcompensate
And yet somehow we can understand videos and photos just fine.
Videogames have to overcompensate when they're missing lots of other important cues, but the closer they get to realism the less they have to overcompensate.
Re: Corners Don't Look Like That: Regarding Screenspace Ambient Occlusion (2012)
#10I don't think the author makes a persuasive argument. Most of the photos they're analyzing are obviously lit by various point light sources, e.g.:
https://nothings.org/gamedev/ssao/IMG_0064.JPG
You can see a sharp shadow near the door frame. So yeah, ambient occlusion is not going to simulate that, but it was never supposed to?
It's supposed to make 3D shapes look good without the need to place lights or do more complex ray tracing. It roughly approximates what you could perhaps see inside a photographic lightbox. Light is coming from every direction and every surface is matte.
The reason it's used in computer games is not that it's photorealistic under all lighting conditions. It's that it makes geometries look better than before with less computational overhead than the alternatives. Harsh lights often look nasty and diffuse lighting is expensive.