ZBrushCentral

Ambient Occlusion

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

How do you make an Ambient Occlusion map in zbrush? And what do the different settings mean for it? Does aperature make it darker?

#2

Assuming that you’re using ZBrush 3.2 or 3.5:


  1. Set Tool>Masking values as desired.
  2. Click the Mask Ambient Occlusion button.
  3. Click Create Alpha
  4. Click Alpha>Export
Your model must have UV’s for the last two steps.


  • Occlusion Intensity controls the strength of the mask. (How dark it will be.)
  • AO ScanDist controls how far away from a point ZBrush will look to find an occluding point. The higher the value, the more masking you will get.
  • AO Aperture controls how focused the occlusion rays are. The lower the value, the more focused they are which results in harder edges to the mask but also gives less coverage. Another way to put is: Lower = Tighter.
As a rule of thumb, lowering the Aperture value requires raising one of the other two values to compensate.

#3

where a put AO Maps on 3Dmax and XSI ? O.o Ambient color ? :rolleyes:

#4

AO consistenly crashes my computer. Is there some work around for this?