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So ive been trying to figure out how to do this in blender for the last 2 days now and got no where.

I want to increase the effect of ambient occlusion when i bake it onto a texture.

enter image description here

I achieved this(right monkey head) by ticking the ambient occlusion box in that side panel and adjusting the settings but couldn't figure out how to bake this into a texture :/

enter image description here

As you can probably tell im not that great with blender. As a programmer, blender is turning into a bit of a night mare since everything i want to do seems straight forward but turns out is isnt at all

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks ~Scott

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  • $\begingroup$ Unfortunately, AFAIK there is not a way to bake that AO. It is there for preview only to help you when you are modeling complex objects. However, you can use the Cycles or BI AO to bake it correctly... $\endgroup$
    – JakeD
    Jan 30, 2017 at 12:26
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for the reply. Im not to sure how to use "Cycles or BI AO" to bake it correctly. Ive been using the bake button in the Render tab (Image Link > puu.sh/tGIQt/4cb9ccd79d.png) and it works, just when i change any relevant settings it doesnt seem to have any effect what so ever(apart from sampling ). could you link me something or go a bit more in depth as to how i would use BI Ambient Occlusion? Thanks $\endgroup$
    – WeirderChimp53
    Jan 30, 2017 at 12:33
  • $\begingroup$ Please see my answer...the first link that I posted at the end is a nicer demonstration than mine, so make sure you upvote his answer if you like it too. BTW welcome to Blender Stack Exchange! $\endgroup$
    – JakeD
    Jan 30, 2017 at 13:37

2 Answers 2

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After UV unwrapping your mesh and creating a new image to bake to, try playing around with the the Distance and Strength values in the Gather menu of the Properties panel.

While test baking with different Distance and Strength values have the Samples set to around 6 or 7. When you think you have found something acceptable then up the Samples to around 25 or so for your final bake.

Do some test bakes with the Strength at small negative values.

If you need still darker AO textures then open your AO bake image in Gimp or PS and edit the image there, then bring it back to Blender.

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for the Answer. I tried using your settings, but only making the strength to a negative number seemed to have an effect. After messing around for some time i decided to save the baked image and edit it in gimp like you suggested. Gimp let me edit the image and get the effect i was after, its not perfect but it will do for what i want. Thanks ~Scott $\endgroup$
    – WeirderChimp53
    Jan 31, 2017 at 3:39
  • $\begingroup$ @WeirderChimp53 Your normals may be backwards...try recalculating $\endgroup$
    – JakeD
    Jan 31, 2017 at 12:19
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This is a basic setup of environment lighting (with lots of AO) in BI:

enter image description here

To bake out the AO, just go to the bake panel and select to bake AO...

enter image description here

Of course, you need to do the usual bake stuff for BI (UV unwrap to a valid texture, etc.).

Here are some links for BI:

How do you bake ambient occlusion for a model?

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/render/blender_render/bake.html#ambient-occlusion

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/render/blender_render/world/ambient_occlusion.html

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/render/blender_render/world/ambient_light.html

And for Cycles:

http://www.blenderguru.com/tutorials/introduction-baking-cycles/

Here is my demo blend file (post all blend files on this site BTW):

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for the answer. The first link, Keavon's answer was what i originally used when i was trying to figure out how to bake Occlusion, but it was more just a basic explanation of baking from what i read and didn't seem to go into much detail about how the different settings worked. $\endgroup$
    – WeirderChimp53
    Jan 31, 2017 at 2:55

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