How to BAKE AMBIENT OCCLUSION MAPS in Blender

Hey guys,
In this tutorial I will show you how to bake ambient occlusion maps in Blender. This is extremely helpful to get better shadows on your 3D assets and make them look more 3 dimensional.
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Thanks for watching!

[@HipBlooD]

Great Tutorial and exactly what i was looking for. Thank you!

[@UnrealMatter]

You're welcome! :)

[@cesarlorenzon2708]

Thanks! Was very easy with this tutorial

[@UnrealMatter]

You're welcome! Thank you for commenting :)

[@driveri1435]

I'm not going to lie. Out of all of the videos I've seen, yours was the best one. Very clear and direct without missing any steps. Thank you for this amazing video.

[@UnrealMatter]

Thank you so much, it means a lot to me when my viewers like the content. :)

[@queworldwow6262]

Thank you so much! Finally I can understand how and for what they're made

[@UnrealMatter]

You're welcome my friend :)

[@user-bz8lz7sx1z]

dude ive been trying to find ao mapping tutorials and all others were BS. thank you for making a legit tutorial with straight forward steps

[@UnrealMatter]

Thank you so much for your comment :) I really like to see when people are happy with the tutorials

[@user-bz8lz7sx1z]

@@UnrealMatter no problem dude , your a freaking life saver

[@taddidio3215]

Great tutorial, fast and to the point

[@UnrealMatter]

Thank you

[@youshimimi]

Easy to follow and very helpful. Thank you!

[@UnrealMatter]

You're welcome :)

[@123forafurry]

Thank you this was way better than the other ones I saw

[@UnrealMatter]

You're welcome!

[@momoguyz7150]

thanks this was really helpful

[@UnrealMatter]

You're welcome :)

[@doctorfear9241]

thanks a lot man, helped me very much

[@UnrealMatter]

You're welcome :)

[@MLL-oh3lx]

Thanks for you awesome guiding

[@UnrealMatter]

You're welcome. I really appreciate your comment :)

[@dianatevanian5618]

Thank you so much!

[@UnrealMatter]

You're welcome, thanks for the comment :)

[@enriquefuster4971]

Thanks man. Super usefull.

[@UnrealMatter]

You're welcome :)

[@astralstormgamestudios1259]

nice!

[@UnrealMatter]

Thank you!!

[@jordanepellerin6684]

you are awesome dude ! :)

[@UnrealMatter]

Thank you so much, I really appreciate your comment :)

[@friendlyreptilian3767]

super thx!

[@UnrealMatter]

You're welcome

[@Shadow-zx4ly]

thanks for your help 😀😀😀

[@UnrealMatter]

You're welcome! :)

[@justjoe7517]

Thanks man.

[@UnrealMatter]

You're welcome :)

[@dianatevanian5618]

Such a simple video, thank you once again! I can't export GLB file with mixRGB node. Maybe you have any suggestions on that? Thank you!

[@UnrealMatter]

Hey, thank you for your comment. I just tried it in Blender 3.4.0 and it works. I have never exportes as .glb. I'm sorry but I don't know why it doesn't work. Maybe because it is a node that is only available in Blender?

[@JetBomb12]

Thanks for the tutorial, I have a question what if i already had ambient occlusion that had noise texture plugged into it how do i preserve the noise texture? or do i just add it after i bake

[@UnrealMatter]

You can keep the noise texture. Make sure you have a mapping and texture coordinate node that go into the noise. You can do that by activating "node wrangler" in the addons and pressing ctrl+t on the noise node. Then you can set your bake type to AO and bake the principled BSDF or set it to diffuse and only bake a diffuse BSDF with the AO setup. You can choose what you like the most. But everything should give the same result.

[@ElvenBubblegum]

Thanks for the guide! Is there a way to increase detail? My AO looks kinda shit because its not detailed enough and you can see the dots

[@UnrealMatter]

You're welcome! Make sure your model doesn't have duplicate vertices, all normal have the right direction and you need to have your model unwrapped with a 0.05 island margin so the uv edges don't overlap. Then try to increase your texture size if you are using something small. Also increase the overall render samples. Make sure there aren't any other objects around the one your baking because these will have an influence on the bake. Normally you should have a very clean bake with this method. Otherwise plug a diffuse bsdf in the material output and with a mix node multiply a pure white color with an ambient occlusion node (increase the samples to a high vale) and set the bake type to diffuse instead of ambient occlusion. Then see which bake method is bettter

[@ElvenBubblegum]

@@UnrealMatter Thank you for the answer! I'll try it out!

[@theologicaldarkweb2695]

How many samples did you use? Did you adjust the distance or intensity?

[@UnrealMatter]

I don't quite understand because I didn't use the Ambient Occlusion node in this process. I just set the bake type to ambient occlusion.
Another way would be to get a diffuse bsdf and multiply a pure white color with an Ambient Occlusion node and then set the bake type to diffuse and bake. If this is what you mean I would leave the samples of the AO at 16 and the distance at 1

[@theologicaldarkweb2695]

I think I figured out a settings that worked. Thanks!@@UnrealMatter

[@sillex0]

Thank you for the great video. But I have a problem. My ambient occlusion is not pretty. The shades are pixelated. How can I change this? I would appreciate an answer.

[@UnrealMatter]

This can be due to multiple reasons.
1. Check the resolution of your texture and make it at least 512 by 512.
2. Your model has to have good geometry, no overlapping faces/intersecting edges and it should be unwrapped with no overlapping UV's.
3. Make sure you don't bake the direct lighting.
4. Increase your light paths count and sample count

[@sillex0]

@@UnrealMatter ty for your answer :). What Do you mean with light pats? Sry..Englisch is not my first language.
And is it possible that my Computer is to old for this, to make the texture nice and clear?

[@UnrealMatter]

@@sillex0 No it is not about the computer, every computer gives the same output, just with different render times. There is a setting called light paths, it is in the Render Options Tab. Try to increase those values

[@sillex0]

@@UnrealMatter ty, i will try that :)

[@sillex0]

@@UnrealMatter I've tried everything that's in light path one by one, but nothing changes.
I saw that the object itself is also a bit pixelated. :/

[@snookofficial7211]

Is it possible to export the map so it can be used else where?

[@UnrealMatter]

Yeah, you can just save it, for example in the UV Editing Tab :)

[@simonlu5141]

Did you have to select high to low or did you just bake of the low poly model?

[@UnrealMatter]

Hello, you don't have to bake selected to active. This is the method with only one model.

[@capitanstyx9998]

i have an error"Baking map saved to internal image, save it externally or pack it"

[@UnrealMatter]

This is not an error, it means the baked image is only temporarily saved and when you close blender it will get deleted. The message only recommends you save the image on your hard drive :)

[@capitanstyx9998]

@@UnrealMatter thanks alot, it's very strange because I don't see any changes in the image itself, it's still just black

[@UnrealMatter]

@@capitanstyx9998 If its black then you maybe did not select the image when baking, the node has to be active (clicked on) to be properly baked. Also maybe you forgot to save it instantly and then it can turn black because the data will be deleted as i said. Hope this helps

[@capitanstyx9998]

@@UnrealMatter I wrote the code in Python, but that doesn’t help either, thanks anyway, I’ll leave the code here (you just need to configure the rendering before applying the code)
import bpy
obj = bpy.data.objects.get("Cube.001")
bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = obj
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')
if not obj.data.materials:
mat = bpy.data.materials.new(name="AO_Material")
obj.data.materials.append(mat)
else:
mat = obj.data.materials[0]
ao_texture = mat.node_tree.nodes.get("AO_Texture")
if not ao_texture:
ao_texture = mat.node_tree.nodes.new(type='ShaderNodeTexImage')
ao_texture.name = "AO_Texture"
ao_texture.location = (0, 0)
image_texture = bpy.data.images.new(name="Untitled", width=1024, height=1024)
ao_texture.image = image_texture
bpy.ops.object.bake('INVOKE_DEFAULT', type='DIFFUSE')
image_texture.filepath_raw = "//Untitled.png"
image_texture.save()
print("Ambient Occlusion baked and saved to Untitled.png")

[@prime-workshop-bd]

How can i export this texture ?

[@UnrealMatter]

You can bake the Ambient Occlusion as a diffuse. I made a tutorial on baking if you need some help :)

[@prime-workshop-bd]

​@@UnrealMatter yes brother, please make a tutorial about that, ami new in blender

[@UnrealMatter]

@@prime-workshop-bd I already made one. You can find it on my channel! :)

[@prime-workshop-bd]

@@UnrealMatter I can't find the video. It would be great if you could give the video link

[@UnrealMatter]

@@prime-workshop-bd th-cam.com/video/ChxGAcKO92Y/w-d-xo.htmlsi=ipdmGlrK30qvwyxj

[@tropical2173]

There is no Mix RBG anymore. for me only apears Mix or Mix Shaders, what can i do?

[@UnrealMatter]

It's the Mix Node. From there you can select Math or Color. You need to choose color :)