SSAO
is a relatively cheap way to improve visual quality of lighting in dynamic and static scenes.
Main benefits of SSAO are following:
calculation of SSAO doesn't depend on scene complexity
works with dynamic as well as static scenes and objects
easy to integrate into real-time rendering pipeline
no pre-computation is needed
executed completely on GPU
There are disadvantages:
to maintain reasonable performance SSAO should be used for small cavities relatively to their size on screen
SSAO is not even close to be accurate ambient occlusion calculation as it view-dependent and changes as fast as camera rotates or moves
hardware limitation, SSAO is a shader intensive technique, with current implementation of SSAO we experienced huge difference in performance between PC's with GeForce 7xxx and 8xxx series. At least 8xxx series is recommended. Latest test shows that biggest performance loss happens due double render of geometry - one time for depth render and one time for normal shading. Impact of SSAO calculation is much less significant.
Links to discussions of SSAO for Quest3D:
Quest3D forums
Gamedev.net community
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