2005-05-13

 

Ambient occlusion takes ages to compute!

Really. Three hours for a model at 1024x1024 and 5x supersampling!

Now I'm using ATI's NormalMapper to compute normal/AO maps (Previously was using nVidia's Melody, but switched for no obvious reason). The good thing with NormalMapper is that it comes with sourcecode; I've already sped up AO computation about 20% by capping octree traversal distances (that took less than an hour). I suspect with some thought it could be optimized even more.

Previously I was using a hacked solution - compute normal map with either tool (that doesn't take long), then use my custom small tool that does low-order GPU PRT simulation on low-poly normalmapped model with D3DX. Get the first term of results, scale it and there you have ambient occlusion. I was thinking it produces good results, but in the truth is that 'real' AO maps look somewhat better, especially for small ornaments that aren't captured in low-poly geometry.

The good thing about this hacked approach is that it takes ~10 seconds for a model (compare to 3hrs). Using it as a quick preview is great, and the differences between hacked-AO and real-AO aren't that much visible once you add textures and conventional lighting.

I'm thinking about doing GPU-based AO simulation on the high poly model, with quick-n-dirty UV parametrization; then just fetching the resulting texture in normal map computation tool (afaik, Melody can do that natively; for NormalMapper it would be easy to add I think). With recent DX9 SDK such tool should not take more than 200-300 lines of code (D3DX has both UVAtlas and GPU PRT simulation now). On the other hand, I know that nVidia guys are preparing something similar :)

Update: added image - on the left is hacked-n-fast AO, on the right is real-AO. Ornaments inside aren't present in low-poly model (only in normal map). Differences are less visible when the model is textured and other stuff is added.

Comments
Sounds good.

Anyway, I hope that today I'll compute AO for the last model in my current demo and be done with that for some time. Maybe after the deadline I'll play with hacking normalmapper more :)
 
Well, on non-rigid models AO is obviously fake :) Unless you compute lots of AO maps for "significant" mode l poses and interpolate that (technique used in nVidia's Ogre demo).

That said, if you compute AO for good-enough pose, it looks pretty ok. Good-enough means that the character should not be sitting, for example. Take it's arms a bit to the sides, put the legs wide, bend the knees a bit, etc. AO will capture the small occlusions that don't change significantly during animation (nostrils, ears, neck, wrinkles etc.).

In our case, the character is "hollow", and AO nicely shadows the inner surfaces plus some surface details.
 
Post a Comment

<< Home