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[BigTnaples]

No it's not. It's heavy, yeah, but far from stupidest or useless.

In that Halo shot, without AO it almost looks like a straight wall, you can't really tell that it's a conjunction in the pillar. Sometimes it's overdone (Far Cry 3) or just plain bad (a lot of games) but when it's done right, it's great.

That first post.


AO is great.

 

[Lady Gaia]

Rant all you want, but AO isn't going anywhere. It's just going to get better, which may satisfy you in the end. Virtually all modern games that aim for a realistic look have it baked into lightmaps already, meaning that when you turn AO "off" you're just turning off the real time support for moving objects and lights — the static background elements continue to look great because they have AO precomputed whether you like it or not.

 

[BriareosGAF]

You didn't post an example of the most damning artifact, which is characters standing against a wall and creating halo AO effect around them. KZ4 has this and it drives me nuts. Infamous:SS has a really awkward AO on the foot too that drives me up the wall, so to speak, but not nearly as bad as their dynamic exposure, if you want a true screen-space post villain.

Either way, "AO" is very, very important for things to sit in the lighting well, but it's complex and involves offline per-instance occlusion/obscurance calculation (sometimes scalar, sometimes a directional field), as well as real-time techniques, some of which are screen-space, and some of which aren't.

 

[ShinobiFist]

HBAO+ example. Images don't really do it justice, as in full motion there are no issues compared to many other implementation that flicker around

Never got to see HBAO+ in action. I think I have no games that use the feature(Need to check) but that gif looks freaking amazing.

 

[riflen]

At some point in history you could have made similar a thread about bilinear vs trilinear texture filtering, or coloured lighting, or whatever. Your complaint is essentially "In my opinion, AO tends to have a performance cost that outweighs the benefits of the effect, on the system I use and at this moment in time."

Well, whoop-de-fucking-do. Your PC could be better, or you could turn the effect off. And if your real complaint is that console developers use it and it costs performance, well, that is one of the many compromises that you choose to make with a games console.

 

[Americanmushroom]

Ambient occlusion has nothing to do with anti-aliasing. It's a pseudo-shadowing technique.

Oups.. my joke came out all wrong..

 

[rashbeep]

AO is a nice effect when not abused like in FC3. Worst OP of all time.

 

[TronLight]

It's looks good in shots but I want to see it in motion without them turning into horrible grainy seizure shadows.

This thread does make me curious about HBAO+ though; sounds like it might finally be a maturation point for it, but I still have to see it in motion to truly judge it.

I think, emphasis on think, that the flickering on most AO techniques is there because AO is usually rendered at half or lower resolution, then upscaled and blurred, which leads to artifacting. HBAO+ doesn't suffer from this because it's rendered at full res with a high humber of samples. The good thing with HBAO+ it's that HBAO+ is fast enough to be rendered at full res without tanking the framerate, whereas other techniques do if rendered at full res.

 

[Chubzdoomer]

It makes the lighting look more realistic. Without it, the scenes look flat in comparison.

 

[TronLight]

Rant all you want, but AO isn't going anywhere. It's just going to get better, which may satisfy you in the end. Virtually all modern games that aim for a realistic look have it baked into lightmaps already, meaning that when you turn AO "off" you're just turning off the real time support for moving objects and lights — the static background elements continue to look great because they have AO precomputed whether you like it or not.

He wasn't lamenting AO as an effect, but the fact that real-time AO is expensive. Pre-computed AO doesn't affect the framerate, so I guess he's ok with it.

 

[KOCMOHABT]

This is probably what OP meant:

(taken from this blog: http://backslashn.com/post/37712343299/this-is-not-how-ambient-occlusion-works)

But this is not the fault of Ambient Occlusion, but rather how it is used.

There is no doubt about Ambient Occlusion being incredibly important for CGI and is implemented in every single professional CGI production. Indirect shadows is just an integral part of lighting.

Now, one can criticize some Screen Space Ambient Occlusion implementations, but in general it has been critical for games to make the world look more grounded. There is a reason that after Crytek implemented the thing for Crysis, slowly every other developer followed.

In most cases it looks way way better. In Far Cry 3 they failed.

 

[forgeforsaken]

It's a nice effect, but the performance hit it usually brings tends not to be worth it.

 

[Haunted]

First you cherry-pick examples and complain that it doesn't make enough of a difference. Then you close out your OP with an example that makes too much of a difference.

If only there was some middle ground to be found inbetween... oh wait, there is. It's called "proper implementation" and improves a game's look when done well. Like with 99% of graphical techniques, it depends on the implementation.

DSFix adding AO to the game made a huge difference, imo. And HBAO+ in DS2 is also a great improvement as you can see in the screen posted in this very thread.


So, it's alright to complain, but don't complain about the technique, complain about developers not applying it appropriately.

 

[scitek]

I think a lot of people don't know what "ambient" means if they don't expect it to be subtle.

 

[Tempy]

AO adds way more "depth" than without, and performance will only improve. So no, OP.

 

[Mr_Appleby]

HBAO+ example. Images don't really do it justice, as in full motion there are no issues compared to many other implementation that flicker around

the in-game AO frame here is what i'd consider an example of bad AO. there's shadows where there really shouldn't be (right next to a light-source) and they appear, to my eyes anyway, to be floating around the objects rather than projected onto the nearby surfaces. HBAO+ looks fine though, and the samples in OP tend to just invalidate his opinion. it adds a nice depth to the scene by delineating objects and particularly where two planes with similar textures meet at an angle it helps to better define the planes and their difference in orientation.

basically if i can turn it on and stay at 60, i don't see why i shouldn't. unless it is a really awful looking implementation.

edit: and the FC3 pics above, damn. yeah that's not the way to do it.

 

[Ade]

I assume this thread is an attempt to "win" points in the console war when it was commented that a couple of PS4 games might not have AO?

 

[Stallion Free]

A feature doesn't run well for me so none of you should be allowed to have it.

 

[MikeE21286]

Looks very nice IMO

 

[Calavera520]

This is actually a pretty good example of why its worthwhile.

Original image is super flat and basic looking.

There are certain times where it makes less of an impact(or there advanced versions that make very little difference from less advanced types), but its one of the many effects that are necessary for improvement in overall image quality. It would be a travesty if you took this out of all future games, for example. Its here now, and it should be taken advantage of.

Yeah, the pictures posted really exemplify why AO is great.

 

[DeaviL]

Ambient Occlusion can add much to a scene.
This thread should be about Motion Blur and Depth of Field,
now those are damn useless and sometimes they even make a game look worse.

 

[Anteater]

I love hbao+, I don't remember the later implementation causing 20fps performance drop. I don't think they need to be super exaggerated to be worthwhile, maybe it's still not accurate enough and some implementation looks bad, but it adds a lot of depth.

 

[Lucifon]

When you have to break out the red ink to point out the differences, you know you have a problem.

That sums up a lot of graphical comparisons, especially during the Great Console War of 2013/14™.

But I agree, the difference is rather minimal. It's more of a 'nice to have' than anything.

 

[ArtHands]

That's not really true at all. Ambient occlusion is a technique which is used to simulate the self-shadowing on objects. A flat planar surface will not self-shadow itself, in fact, AO is only really relevant for complex models and surfaces which do self-shadow.

By flat, I think he's referring to the color (flat color), not flat in the literal meaning. Also, AO is relevant in simple models too.

 

[DarkJedi24]

Exactly let's go back to n64 graphics.

-

 

[Fafalada]

but when it's done right, it's great.

Vast majority of games use screen-space methods exclusively - ie. it's almost never done right. Ie. FC3 wasn't really an aberration as much as a common-case, sadly.

 

[iNvid02]

im with op, lets get rid of AA and AF while we're at it.

 

[jim-jam bongs]

A feature doesn't run well for me so none of you should be allowed to have it.

IT'S STOOPID AND UR POOPY

 

[Mman235]

This is probably what OP meant:

Now here's the kind of shit I typically associate with SSAO, and these manage to look horrible even when the game isn't in motion (you can even see the grain!)

But I guess it's time to check out HBAO+ in some games and potentially jump on the train...

 

[meptrep]

It's not like AO is even demanding at this point. I have a 780 now but my 660Ti was able to handle everything (in 2012 and most of 2013 of course) pretty well and that's a lower end card.

 

[Betta Lines]

This is probably what OP meant

Indeed, when I think of awful AO, I think Far Cry 3. Both the SSAO and HBAO modes looked bad, and there was another mode that looked good but it was really demanding. HDAO?

 

[Z3M0G]

I think OP has a point... that the performance hit is often just not worth it... I keep it off on most games on my PC because it simply can't handle it.

But the pics in the OP, other than the very first set, were TERRIBLE examples to show his point... they proved how AO really HELPS at times, by a large degree.

 

[GuitarAtomik]

The only time it bothers me is when they use it HEAVILY against characters outlines which gives it this cheap, unnatural, I-just-applied-drop-shadow-to-this-layer effect. Biggest offenders that I noticed it off the top of my head were Far Cry 3, Splinter Cell Conviction, and Witcher 2.

 

[sits]

AO's effect is most noticable when it's applied to grass, shrubbery and the like. However, it's not exactly noticable in a good way. Check out this Skyrim comparison:
Skyrim-shots.jpg
The added shadows look like they were added with MSPaint's spray tool. They look terrrible!

In that instance, I think it was patched in much later and maybe it didn't receive the same amount of fine tuning as the rest of the game. It does look very heavy handed there.

The worst part about ambient occlusion is that it comes with a MASSIVE performance hit. In most PC games, enabling AO causes my framerate to drop by 20 fps or more. There's just no justification for neutering your fps for such a pointless effect.

If you're a console developer and you sacrifice framerate for ambient occlusion, you deserve to see your game fail.

Harsh, but I see your point. Maybe console versions of games need a "performance mode" toggle where you can sacrifice AO, among other things, to get a more solid fps -- kind of like a more developed version of the toggles already available in some games (eg. v-sync, locked framerate, etc.).

 

[pestul]

I agree with OP for its forced early implementations (minimal visual improvement, huge penalty). It it absolutely awesome in recent titles.

 

[Dolor]

In that Halo shot, without AO it almost looks like a straight wall, you can't really tell that it's a conjunction in the pillar.

This was my thought exactly. Without AO on, I saw the geometry differently. That seems to matter to me.

 

[RealMeat]

Personally, I think depth of field is the most pointless effect. It can look good during cutscenes, but during gameplay I want everything to be a clear and sharp as possible.

 

[Ysiadmihi]

Dark Souls 2 looks like a totally different game without SSAO. It's amazing with it on.

 

[Litri]

I guess the debate is more if the improvement displayed when using any form of AO is proportional to the decrease in performance. In that case, and depending on the example, I think AO, SSAO or HBAO are sometimes a bad idea.

 

[Mdk7]

What the fuck?
Apart from loving AO a lot, what's the point of the OP?
All the images look better with AO turned on. :/

 

[Hawkian]

wow, such upgrade

That looks immeasurably better, you undermine your entire argument including this as an example, you lose good day sir, etc.

 

[hepburn3d]

AO actually works great when used correctly, for the appropriate scene. It's like cheating. If someone knows you're doing it, you're not doing it right.

 

[Rizsparky]

The only time it bothers me is when they use it HEAVILY against characters outlines which gives it this cheap, unnatural, I-just-applied-drop-shadow-to-this-layer effect. Biggest offenders that I noticed it off the top of my head were Far Cry 3, Splinter Cell Conviction, and Witcher 2.

The ghostly aurora it created was quite distracting in Far Cry 3.

 

[Stallion Free]

Man what a cherry picking fail by not including Far Cry 3 in the first post.

 

[abracadaver]

I hate how the effect seems to draw shadows around my weapon in BF3 and BF4. Looks stupid and wrong.

I like it in most cases though but the shadows around weapons annoy me. Same with the pictures above where the characters have the shadow outline.

 

[Hawkian]

The far cry 3 examples are ludicrous, I would have had to disable that.

 

[Durante]

Vast majority of games use screen-space methods exclusively - ie. it's almost never done right. Ie. FC3 wasn't really an aberration as much as a common-case, sadly.

I don't really see your point here - what would doing it "right" entail? Certainly not physical accuracy, because then nothing in games is being done "right".

I think modern screen-space methods (i.e. anything published in literature post-2010) are generally good enough, that is, they are as good at approximating ambient occlusion as textures are at approximating texture and shadow maps are at approximating shadows. I've never seen a catastrophic failure state for e.g. HBAO+, either in stills or in motion.

 

[Kssio_Aug]

Its nothing that will completely change your experience, but its a good effect. If you can apply it without lose the frame rate youre targeting thats very welcome.

 

[hawk2025]

OP is on a roll with his/her threads lately.


AO looks great when used correctly -- Far Cry 3 is an excellent example of how it can actually "go wrong". I also wonder if Bound by Flame's almost celshaded look in parts is a result of extremely aggressive AO?

 

[Axass]

I was going to agree that it is useless to me because I never seem to notice the difference when I turn it on, but some of those shots actually make me appreciate it.

True, he actually somehow proved the opposite point of what he was trying to say. That white corridor would be quite dull without ambient occlusion.