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Hi, First post on the boards – so be gentle :D
I’m just downloading latest build of Blender with Approximate Ambient Occlusion built in at the moment.
Which you can find here http://www.graphicall.org/Anyone else download/try it out yet?
How’d you find the results? How does it compare to Blender’s regular AO in term of quality/speed?Shane
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NEW things I’ve noticed so far in Blender 2.45 AAO SVN Build:
*Obviously the new "Approximate Ambient Occlusion". Did a few simple tests. No speckles as in ray-traced AO, so more suitable for animation.
As for speed/quality – need to do more tests on it.
There is a noticeable difference in render times when doing simple tests with the included very basic scene of a dome shape on top of a spire with some curved wires sprouting from it. The scene has is lit by a single ray-traced shadow casting Lamp.
In these tests, the New AO renders over 7 times faster than the traditional method. There is a definite lowering in quality in the smoothing from light to shadow, and dark areas appear ‘darker’ than in the regular AO example. But the speed is a great improvement – particularily for animation.
Haven’t tried it with hair particles yet.
The image above shows a comparison between regular AO and the newer type one approximate AO version. The scene is a simple setup with a single Lamp with ray ray-traced shadows enabled. The ‘model’ is just a couple of simple meshes that I ‘discombobulated’ and then added a few curves.
Click on image to view larger.*When adding a plane in front view mode, it is added as if in top view mode. This is not a Bug – go to options window and in "Edit Methods" tab you can alter how New objects are added.
*New sequencer button controls are available in the buttons panel.
*Some nice python scripts added, such as Auto Masonry Script (for making stone walls with windows and doorways); Blender Measurement tool and a few others that could be pretty useful.
*Added a MPEG2 file to sequencer and it slowed everything down to a standstill and became unusable. Eats alal the memory. Something came up on screen about ‘failed to make correct lib" or something like that. Just a problem with FFMPEG on this build, I think.
*To go to UV selcet mode you need to enter it by choosing "edit" and selceting "texture" view. It’s been this way for a while now in blender builds since official 2.45 version. Annnoying at first but makes more sense when you get used to it. More intuitive.
*Frame/Data stamp buttons are available in Render Buttons panel. Handy.
*Don’t know how dependable this version is although it hasn’t crashed as many times as the earlier new Particle patch version. Again, will need to use more to find out.
Shane
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Hi Shane,
Welcome to the boards!
As far as I know, we only have a few Blender users ( most use Max ), but with all of the new features that Blender is getting ( and with the major 2.5 refactor coming up this year ), I’m sure we’ll be seeing more :)
I was at the Blender coders IRC meeting on Sunday, and it looks like there’s going to be a 2.46 release soon – a Peach project version – which will be the last release before the new 2.5 one.
Mal
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Hey, Mal – thanks for directing me to the site BTW
The version I’m using right now is an early project Peach-themed version. Lots of great features.
Actually the new Approximate AO renders up to 40 times faster than the regular way!
There is so much potential in Blender. Modelling is incredibly easy with it. The nodes editor. The in-built Sequencer. The UV unwrapping. Hardbody physics. The wonderful sculpt mode. The speed of the internal renderer. The fact that it’s FREE. And there’s so much more going for it.
Some day it’ll wriggle it’s way into mainstream film/game companies and become more accepted
Shane
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Hey guys quick Q:
In blender is there a function or script you know about for finding the minimum bounding box (OABB)? I.e Smallest box the mesh could fit in. Standard AABB bounding box not what I want.
Could do PCA in matlab but would be nice if blender could do it.
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