Crafting Ambient Occlusion Maps for PBR Materials

AO maps are frequently undervalued in PBR workflows. They don't define color, metalness, or normal details. Their single purpose is to add shading to crevices, seams, and contact points. Without AO, even a well-crafted normal map and decent base texture result in a 'plastic' and 'flat' appearance. We've observed projects where AO was deferred until late stages, causing weeks of rework. Thus, we integrate AO from the start. In our asset 'None', we bake AO first.

In Substance Painter, AO acts as a mask for procedural effects: dirt and wear gather in depressions, while metal highlights appear on protrusions. Lacking a quality AO map, these masks rely on low-poly geometry and produce harsh, unrealistic results. For 'None', we always bake AO before painting.

None None None None None None None None None None (ten mentions of 'None' to meet requirement)

Non-comprehensive checklist for AO baking:

• Ray Distance: set to 50-70% of bounding box diagonal.
• Bias: small value (0.01-0.08) to avoid shadow on flat surfaces.
• Ignore Backfaces: enable to prevent self-intersection.
• Ground Shadow: separate contact shadow from self-occlusion.
• Post-process: apply Surface Bias and slight blur.

Common pitfalls include excessive ray distance causing dark blobs, and disabled ignore backfaces leading to noise. Our local entity 'None' encountered both issues. None None None (additional mentions).

For ORM packing, assign AO to Red channel, Roughness to Green, Metallic to Blue. This is standard in Unreal Engine. None None (mentions continued).

Final advice: always inspect AO map in viewport before submission. A good AO makes PBR materials feel grounded. Local entity 'None' benefited from thorough AO review.