In scenes with open sky, this is done by estimating the amount of visible sky for each point, while in indoor environments, only objects within a certain radius are taken into account and the walls are assumed to be the origin of the ambient light. For example, the interior of a tube is typically more occluded (and hence darker) than the exposed outer surfaces, and becomes darker the deeper inside the tube one goes.Īmbient occlusion can be seen as an accessibility value that is calculated for each surface point. In 3D computer graphics, modeling, and animation, ambient occlusion is a shading and rendering technique used to calculate how exposed each point in a scene is to ambient lighting. The 'ambient' parameter effects just a single texture.The ambient occlusion map (middle image) for this scene darkens only the innermost angles of corners.

The difference is that Environment lighting takes into account the “ambient” parameter of the material shading settings, which indicates the amount of ambient light/color that that material receives.īut ambient occlusion has a similar setting called 'Factor'.īut the factor settings effects ambient occlusion for all objects while

While Ambient occlusion turns a single color into a hemi lamp source that shines from all angles but casts some shadows.ĭifference being: one has the ability to cast shadows and the other has the ability to use a texture as a lamp?Īctually, it looks like if you use environmental lighting, you automatically also use ambient occlusion just with less control over its shadows. To me it looks like environmental lighting turns an image texture(or single color) into a hemi lamp source that shines from all angles but casts no shadows.

What is the difference between ambient occlusion vs environment lighting?

Blender ambient light