United3dArtists Archive

HI guys!

Maybe some of you have noticed the new SMAK banner on the page.. This is cos i found lurking on internet a GREAT tool called SMAK..
Smak create AMBIENT OCCLUSION Maps, Normal Maps and much more.. Exactly what i need for my projects so i started the contact with the developer Jorge Rodriguez.

I'm helping with the beta tester and i confess i LOVE this tool. so i'm interested on help him cos is a talent young developer and we need tools like this for our work..

The good new is he will give some free licenses supporting SMC and SMM..

Here is a video showing the potential of SMAK using Truespace and my dx shader.



I truly recommend this tool, for games and realtime IS PERFECT..

HA! and Very important also i truly recommend to get Froo's OBJ importer Exporter.. It works like a charm with Smak!!
HEY! seems froo is launching a special price for his OBJ Importer!! go now and thanks me later!

Enjoy the Ambient Occlusion!

And few videos from the site..

hey, this is coool, really great for realtime fast animations for interiors. Maybe I will use it in future. Anyway we need everything, every tool in the tS version to keep tS powerfull.

good job supporting tS

this looks a really great tool , does it need your dxshader to be able to be used properly ,and if it does is your dxshader available as a dload from somewhere on this forum ? or are you still working on it.

I think as well Parva may have made a shader that can load AO maps , will have to check it and see..

thanks
Paul

What is Ambient Occlusion?

Cayenne wrote:this looks a really great tool , does it need your dxshader to be able to be used properly ,and if it does is your dxshader available as a dload from somewhere on this forum ? or are you still working on it.

I think as well Parva may have made a shader that can load AO maps , will have to check it and see..

thanks
Paul

Greetings paul!

The software combines textures with the Ambient occlusion..

The TS workflow is:

create your model on truespace.. UV it and export the object in OBJ or Collada format since Smak support collada aswell..
Load the object on smak, generate the ambient occlusion map that can be combined with the texture so the texture itself will have the shadows on it.. Save the new texture, applied it on your model and that's all.

I tried to go one step more adding a diffuse channel map on my dxshader.. so i can tweak the shadows and the texture independently like i shown on the video.

The dx shader still under development since i'm adding new stuff on it.. For example now the Diffuse channel use the UV2, so you can use the UV2 for the ambient occlusion and change the UV1 for the texture etc..

Finis wrote:What is Ambient Occlusion?

Ambient occlusion

Ambient occlusion is a method to calculate shadows, it looks like Global illumination..

By the way, everyone is free to download the demo version.. is fully functional, not trial, the only limitation is the output texture resolution ..

Finis wrote:What is Ambient Occlusion?

The shade of a point depending on the geometry neighbor. For example, inside a tube will never be very bright, regardless of the number or type of light present on the outside of the tube. Ambient Occlusion use an algorithm that will calculate a shading at each point of the scene without needing to know the lighting applied to it and pre-compute once and for all. The results will not always be physically accurate, but it will add considerable realism to the scene.
Just imagine a kind of "alpha mask for light". some part of a scene are less affected by the light.

as marcel wrote... just a fake gi. closed/deeper areas are darker that the open area.

The main difference between Ambient occlusion and global illumination in the outcome is that Global illumination also calculates and
shows color bleeding which ambient occlusion doesnt.... so your shadows are always grey and not tinted in the color of you object
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2010/ ... eding.html"
Peter

Yes and also the quantity of light reflected by a good GI can be different with material bright or mat, white or black, opaque or tranparent...

RAYMAN wrote:The main difference between Ambient occlusion and global illumination in the outcome is that Global illumination also calculates and
shows color bleeding which ambient occlusion doesnt.... so your shadows are always grey and not tinted in the color of you object
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2010/ ... eding.html"
Peter

Well said, but just a small comment, smak it does color bleeding..

so I import whole scene without lights as one grouped obj or colada object? process it (add a AO texture with color bleeding) and load it back to tS?

do I understand? I dont have time to play with it. so sorry for dumb q.

Prodigy wrote:

RAYMAN wrote:The main difference between Ambient occlusion and global illumination in the outcome is that Global illumination also calculates and
shows color bleeding which ambient occlusion doesnt.... so your shadows are always grey and not tinted in the color of you object
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2010/ ... eding.html"
Peter

Well said, but just a small comment, smak it does color bleeding..

Well then it does ambient occlusion plus color bleeding........
Yes its called color AO in Smak..... a special mode.....

I always thought ambient occlusion was when my female neighbor slams her blinds shut so I cannot peek into her bedroom.

jamesmc wrote:I always thought ambient occlusion was when my female neighbor slams her blinds shut so I cannot peek into her bedroom.

LOL

"so I import whole scene without lights as one grouped obj or colada object? process it (add a AO texture with color bleeding) and load it back to tS?

do I understand? I dont have time to play with it. so sorry for dumb q."

NO it is not a dumb question..

Not sure if support group of objects.. i can't remember.. you just need to UV one object.. export it as obj or collada, import it on smak, select AO, wait to generate the map and use the map on your object in truespace.. more, less that is the workflow for smak.