Setting ambient occlusion and height texture for materials

[liswp]

Hi NVISII Team,

Thanks for all the support!

Quick question here - does NVISII support adding ambient occlusion and height textures for materials?

What about displacement texture maps?

Thank you again.

[natevm]

We currently don’t support ambient occlusion maps, since ambient occlusion occurs as part of the path tracing algorithm used by nvisii. For a special look though, you could multiply the color texture by the ambient occlusion texture.

Unfortunately we don’t support displacement maps either, though we do support normal maps. OptiX recently gained support for displacement mapping via micromeshes in Ada, so support might come down the road.

[liswp]

Hi @natevm ,

Thanks for the information! Just to follow-up, what happens when you multiply the color texture by the ambient occlusion texture? What does a "special look" refer to? A look that closely approximates the standard way of incorporating AO maps?

Could you please elaborate more precisely on what will happen if you multiply the color texture by the ambient occlusion texture? Many thanks.

[natevm]

Ambient occlusion maps are an approximation to true ambient occlusion, and raster based game engines use them to compensate for not simulating actual photons. Since NVISII is a ray tracer, we don’t have this limitation, and so AO maps are unnecessary.

Still, you might find that the true ambient occlusion we have in NVISII isn’t “intense” enough. Like a set piece in a movie, you might “paint” dark regions on a prop where there are crevices to achieve a certain “gritty” look where dirt and dust would collect over time. Multiplying the base color texture by the ambient occlusion texture will cause the AO texture to darken the base color texture in those regions.