SHADOWMAP
FUTURE
You can clearly tell the difference, Future just removes any sort of shadow and detail from the viewmodel, future is this close to making it look straight out of a viewport.
future ambient:
shadowmap ambient:
future sunlight:
shadowmap sunlight:
EDIT: same thing but with 0.1 stud thick fins:
shadowmap ambient:
shadowmap sunlight:
future ambient:
future sunlight:
And did you even bother reading the edit where I put a smaller gun model?
Ambient Occlusion is very visible on white untextured meshes.
But its identical on the black ones.
Explain what I’m seeing, my gun on future lighting gets little to no ambient occlusion compared to ShadowMap.
Future on is getting ambient occlusion and the shadowmap one is getting occlusion.
I think that’s the best way to put it.
Show me the same but when in the shadow of that wall.
I don’t think you know what Ambient Occlusion means, ShadowMap Ambient Occlusion gets into areas where light struggles to get through, and it does that job perfectly, Future does not do that here.
Ambient occlusion is for occluding ambient light coming from all directions. What shadowmap is doing is using it for light coming from all directions AND coming for the infinitely small dot that is the Roblox sun, future doesn’t do this and only uses Ambient occlusion for Ambient light.
Ambient occlusion refers to how light struggles to reach certain areas in tight spaces, such as corners, crevices, or areas where surfaces are close together.
Correct but we already have this for the sun in the form of shadowmaps(really low-res crunchy ones but still) using ambient occlusion for this is incorrect as we are treating the sun as if it is blurred across the entire sky when not in shadows cast by the shadowmap and as if it doesn’t exist at all when we are in shadows cast by the shadowmap. This is a inconsistent representation of the sun and how it illuminates the environtment.
1 Like
For absolute realism we’re meant to use Shadows, but we know how ugly and low resolution Roblox shadows are so we can’t. Therefore we have to use Ambient Occlusion to fake it, ShadowMap fakes it better than Future can.
There shouldn’t be AO when a surface is directly lit, because there’s nothing obstructing the light rays.
Turn on a lightbulb in your room right now and you’ll see your corners are dark. Also real life light bounces many many times, and that bouncing doesn’t occur in areas close together.
The Sun is infinitely brighter than a lightbulb, not to mention pointing a flashlight at a corner very clearly illuminates the corner without any blobby shadows.
Regardless of realism, I do think we should have more control over AO instead of bickering over it like this.
There’s no point in talking to a brick wall, light bounces in real life, which is why we get global illumination, with each bounce that surface gets a tiny bit brighter to our eyes, but light can’t get into small crevices or tight areas which results in less bounces compared to areas with no crevices or tight areas.
You can see this outside in direct lighting as well if not even more so because the difference between darker and illuminated spots is greater.
even with multiple bounces the way in which ambient occlusion treats light just isn’t compatible with small points of light like the sun here is a blender render I made in blender 3.6 showcasing a custom shader i made that uses a sharp glossy bsdf and makes it sample the environment like in cycles to allow proper occlusion of small lights like the sun using screen spaced reflections on the bottom is the same but using a regular glossy bsdf that behaves exactly like roblox shadowmap ambient occlusion occludes small points of light like the sun.
EDIT: another example comparing ao shadows to shadowmap shadows:
I think this discussion has run its course.
4 Likes
Yes, AO is not available on Roblox. I also had a similar problem, such uneven shadows in the form of stripes and it looked terrible. I’m not very good with shadows yet, but I understand what you want to achieve.