From the course: Maya: Shader Networks

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Distance-based mapping with Ai Ambient Occlusion

Distance-based mapping with Ai Ambient Occlusion

From the course: Maya: Shader Networks

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Distance-based mapping with Ai Ambient Occlusion

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- [Instructor] One of the most useful general purpose techniques in shader networks is applying ambient occlusion, which lets you shade a surface based upon its distance to other surfaces. Originally, ambient occlusion was intended as a means of faking global illumination or to give the impression of bounce light not reaching into the corners and cracks and crevices in a model. But now we don't need that in a lighting context anymore because we have such advanced global illumination renders available, but ambient occlusion is still super useful in a shading network. For example, we could use it as a mask to mask off different parts of this model here so that some parts would be shiny and other parts would be rough depending upon how close they were. So for example, we could make the interior surfaces here a different material, or have some different shading property. The first step towards that is to simply get the ambient…

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