I haven't tried, but the manual says you can use full atlas without cropping out the single shape. It should detect all atlas elements and scatter them.
Quote: Extract elements from an Atlas and scatter them on a background. Atlas inputs are full materials, consisting of individual elements arranged and packed on a single texture sheet. This node splits them up (using an internal Atlas Splitter process) and scatters them, similar to Shape Splatter. Atlas Scatter requires at minimum an Opacity map input , and a Height map input for the Atlas, to function.
I think the reason why there isn't an AO slot is because your meant to just use a HBAO node afterwards from the height output. If just used the AO from before then you'd be missing the AO generated from rocks being close together.
I haven't tried, but the manual says you can use full atlas without cropping out the single shape. It should detect all atlas elements and scatter them.
Quote: Extract elements from an Atlas and scatter them on a background. Atlas inputs are full materials, consisting of individual elements arranged and packed on a single texture sheet. This node splits them up (using an internal Atlas Splitter process) and scatters them, similar to Shape Splatter. Atlas Scatter requires at minimum an Opacity map input , and a Height map input for the Atlas, to function.
Huge thanks for pointing that out.
That would really simplify the process
I think the reason why there isn't an AO slot is because your meant to just use a HBAO node afterwards from the height output. If just used the AO from before then you'd be missing the AO generated from rocks being close together.