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Ambient Occlusion: The stupidest graphical technique of all time

R

rjc571

Banned
Ambient Occlusion is a technique that basically adds shadows to certain parts of the environment. However, the result is barely noticable in most cases, and completely unconvincing and unnatural looking in others. Lets look at some comparison screens.

UxN8Z.jpg

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

IugX91V.png

wow, such upgrade

32oDu85.jpg

The added wall crease shadow increases my immersion by 150%

VpxnDXD.jpg

Ambient Occlusion is on the left... I think?

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:
XzXljbD.jpg

The added shadows look like they were added with MSPaint's spray tool. They look terrrible!

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.
 
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.
 
I can't remember ever getting a 20 fps hit from AO.

There are plenty of shit implementations, but the technique has made great progress with HBAO+.
 
If you're a console developer and you sacrifice framerate for ambient occlusion, you deserve to see your game fail.
Click to expand...

Bit extreme :)

Every graphical effect has its place... sometimes it is useful, sometimes it is not. I agree with some of your comparisons but disagree with others. I do agree that frame rate is king.
 
While I think it helps in many cases, ambient occlusion is often a huge performance hog for only slight gain so it's the first thing I turn off when I want a better framerate.
 
I don't know about stupid but it's performance cost far outweighs the return, in my opinion. If anything needs to be toned down in my settings AO is usually first thing overboard.
 
Just because the effect is subtle, that doesn't mean it's worthless. I get your point that underpowered machines like consoles would be better off using their limited power on other things, but that doesn't make AO stupid by any stretch of the imagination.
 
Sorry, but no. Ambient occlusion is a great addition to lighting and shadows and makes a massive difference in every single example you've given.
 
There are a lot of inefficient and/or ugly implementations of AO, but it can add a lot of depth while still looking natural if it's used carefully. I may have to dig through some pages of the DSFix thread to find good examples.
 
I generally turn AO to low as it is more difficult to notice in motion.

I will say that the effect does add depth to scenes though.
 
I feel like this could be a joke post or something. Besides the BF shots which is very hard to notice, pretty much all of those other screens look better with it on. Some of them much better. So...
 
I know what AO is and I can tell you that it adds depth to everything. I like it and sacrifice some performance for it.
 
Ambient occlusion visually anchors objects into each other.

You might as well complain about any effect that has previously been computationally intensive that we haven't bothered using up until the point where the cost benefit return was justifiable.

But the stupidest is actually chromatic aberration.
 
Every once in a while I run across a game where it looks good, but usually the fps hit isn't worth it, no.
 
Sinatar said:
Every screenshot you posted looks better with AO on...
Click to expand...

Correct.... although, a lot of them could be done with baked AO which has a very low performance hit. I think the OP is talking about forms of screen space ambient occlusion.

SSAO can look really awful at times but these screenshots don't show that.
 
Every one of those AO screenshots looks better than the ones without, so I don't know you're trying to prove here, OP.
 
Stallion Free said:
I can't remember ever getting a 20 fps hit from AO.

There are plenty of shit implementations, but the technique has made great progress with HBAO+.
Click to expand...

This. Ambient occlusion suffers when it is done in screenbase and there is only so much one can do to fight against this.

Non-screenbased implementations (whether tmeporally modified, or by using actual diverse cvolume coordinates) are great approximations for real live secondary occlusion
 
Now that decent AO can be implemented with relatively low performance cost, I have no problems with it. A few years ago, I probably would have agreed with you. It looked poor and was expensive on hardware, but that's not really an issue presently.
 
I can't consider an effect stupid simply because it's demanding and subtle. At worst it's a nicety for those with better hardware than me. At best it's something I enjoy because I have the horsepower to not give a shit.
 
The worst use of AO in my opinion is on foliage. I can't tell you how distracting it is when the tufts or clumps of grass in a landscape have a weird blobby shadow underneath them.

Other than that, on buildings, etc. I think it can definitely add some nice touches.
 
I truly find it hard to believe that these minuscule graphical differences really alter the way anyone plays the game. There is hardly a difference in the two screenshots.
 
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.
 
rjc571 said:
IugX91V.png
Click to expand...
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.
 
Zaptruder said:
But the stupidest is actually chromatic aberration.
Click to expand...

Yup. If we're going to make a thread about a shit graphical affect, it should be about CA.

Yes game developers, let's simulate a camera effect that modern cameras spent years and millions in R&D to eliminate.

Even better in first person games, cause you know, the human eye totally adds CA to everything...
 
I like the effect. Subtle in some cases, yes, but in other games it really shines. And it's worth it for me because my setup can usually run it without significant performance loss. Wouldn't call it stupid.
 
Can't believe what I just read. This is the single most effective technique to make games look more natural and by hiding polygon seams to a degree. With SSAO it is not even very taxing, we use it in our iOS engine at not much cost.
 
GameSeeker said:
Exactly. Chromatic aberration is a complete waste of GPU/CPU cycles. Those developers who keep using it in the name of "art" are wasting their time.
Click to expand...

again, there are places for it. case in point, outlast, where 90% of your time spent looking through a camera...
 
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