A Quick Trick For Extra Realism (Blender Tutorial)

One of the most difficult challenges in 3D is getting buildings, walls, and other objects to look like they inhabit the same space. You can use the ambient occlusion node to add an extra layer of dirt and grime to your buildings, making them appear to seamlessly blend into the world.
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[@DECODEDVFX]

If you're using this in an animation, you'll get faster renders by turning the AO into a texture. Here's a quick video on texture baking to get you started. kzbin.info/www/bejne/nJOrZZSHd5p5n68

[@PlanetComputer]

ok

[@TehBurek]

And objects moving near each other won't change each others materials in the drive-by :)

[@mauriccimgt1]

Thats also great if you are using Optix instead of CUDA to render, since AO is not supported yet.

[@Ytsssss364]

I told my wife - "I cannot vacuum! I need to study - the "ambient occlusion!" - and showed her this tutorial. She has now downloaded her own version of Blender - and last I saw: she was modelling a rolling pin and rigging it with physics dynamics.

[@umbrellasquid9669]

Amazing

[@ThatLooksNiceCo]

Thanks for the tutorial! If you set the mix node to a blend mode like multiply, then set your color, you can get some more natural/organic looking interactions with the existing color. And you can also use something like this to affect the strength of your bump node, or your roughness material if you have one for an even more detailed effect. 👍

[@GabrielsLogic]

Nice! Thanks

[@doko3000]

For something like a film or cinematic you'd manually paint a texture for that blend region, right? Using AO, originally meant to darken close corners and crevices, is a fast way to get a similar result, but you'd usually manually paint in a grayscale texture to control that.

[@spaceman-pe5je]

@@doko3000 the real answer is that you would use substance painter, which allows you to use a mixture between AO, cavity, and a world space gradient to do it procedurally and quickly

[@marcd7332]

The tutorial that was missing on yt

[@dcub3801]

Well I think Blender Guru did something like this but didn't go into any detail, so this is more useful!

[@DECODEDVFX]

Yeah, Andrew briefly touched on the subject in the kitchen tutorial he made at the start of 2019.

[@pirobot668beta]

This solved a mystery! Years ago, I was noodling about in Blender forums, and someone mentioned using AO 'for shading', but they never elaborated. I think this is what they were talking about! Much thanks for this, DECODED!

[@unicornhuntercg]

You can also use this trick to have some fake foam around floating objects in ocean scenes and such.

[@hadarnesher]

I been giving this trick to everyone that uses blender cuz it is awesome and its nice to see that finally more people will talk about it

[@JaredOwen]

Great tip!

[@KogureDevilchan]

If I'm not wrong, you can also do a "stylized gradient" with noise texture and gradient texture mixed with overlay into a ColorRamp. and locate it at the bottom of the building.

[@commodore7331]

I did this with a model of an old CRT screen I made to make it look like there was dirt accumulating around the edges of the screen. It's really effective but can look really weird if you're using Eevee.

[@alaslipknot]

Eevee is kinda "mysterious" compared to Cycle, CGcookies has a great course about perfect lighting on Eevee, i highly recommend checking it out, it will open so many new possibilities

[@unicornhuntercg]

That's because eevee uses screenspace ambient occlusion

[@Lubble-]

I prefer testing stuff in Cycles but rendering in Eevee

[@elektra81516]

Cycles is ray traced whilst EEVEE is screen space. What you can do is bake the colour texture in cycles then bring that into EEVEE and it'll preserve the effect, you'll have to rebake it every time you edit the model or move it however.

[@commodore7331]

@@Lubble- that's kind of wierd

[@PastaMaster115]

On Tattooine, all the buildings are in a constant state of being burried and unburried by sandstorms. While there is definitely wear on the buildings there is also varying degrees of sand piled up against the walls. So you'd need to drag some floor up around the building a bit.

[@EmptySkySora]

Nobody asked for this tip, because nobody knew how much this tip is needed. Thanks a lot.

[@VicSoh8649]

Really cool trick! It's one of those things you only realize when it's not there. I'm thinking here, you could mix/multiply or screen the AO output with some musgrave or noise texture to give it a more randomized and textured feeling to the grime too.

[@PatriceFERLET]

Simple, efficient, clean and quick to do. Nice.

[@Infestedparrot]

This is perfect for a scene that's been giving me some trouble. And here I was, messing with dynamic paint and vertext colors like a fool.

[@762]

Thank you.

[@StormyMainShorts]

very nice

[@hidgik]

My god! You are a really observant guy! I wouldn't have noticed that in two lifetimes!

[@greatstaro9255]

Useful!! most textures are always so clean

[@RSpudieD]

Well this was impressively simple! I'm actually shocked at how well the ambient occlusion node works for this!

[@MrFarkasOfficial]

Hugely underrated tip!!!

[@ImReadyD151]

bro you a legend

[@DarkShroom]

mind BLOWN.... i feel like a beginner again! such an excellent feature it never occurred to me that AO could be used to enable that smooth transition you created... and i'm always looking at old video textures i like as reference material, they have these smooth joins and the bottom of certain textures, now it's like i can just generate that automatically!

[@AndrewConway]

Very cool

[@pedrobraun1534]

You can also use the gradient node and connect it in the factor, very similar to the ambient occlusion node, but the advantage of the first one is that it is lighter in EEVE

[@maximeteppe7627]

how so? wouldn't just make a vertical gradient from the ground rather than accumulating in crevices? anyway, on the opposite side of the spectrum, (meaning to make it heavier but more refined) you could mix in a noise texture to make the dirt more random and jagged.

[@DrunkenUFOPilot]

I"d have to try it and play around, by I imagine it would look to neat and perfect, too uniformly present everywhere. Maybe adding noise or some measure of mesh curvature could help. AO emphasizes the nooks and crannies, the inner corners where whirling wind doesn't reach as well, where grime and dust and dead bugs and crud can build up.

[@WektorGH]

awesome! thanks!

[@Maarten-Nauta]

Ive been looking for this forever

[@apang1831]

Thank you so much. I'm even not using a blender LOL. But great, it is suitable for any 3d modelling texture

[@matchdance]

Thank you so much

[@RyanKingArt]

Nice video!

[@DECODEDVFX]

Thanks Ryan!

[@Zerotwostudio]

Simple yet effective!

[@simoncodrington]

Great little video mate. Perfect showcase for the AO node to really stick things together

[@msgaramycin5330]

I'm happy for the existence of this channel

[@DECODEDVFX]

Thank you.

[@RomboutVersluijs]

Especially adding it to the ground raising the quality. SUper nice it also works on the ground, thats simply a flat plane. Quite interesting that it get AO from the other meshes as

[@sunshineconch5377]

Nice!

[@hillfortherstudios2757]

Very cool! I am a total newbie and I never would've realized that. I liked and subscribed. Thanks mate!

[@dhaloh]

Wow this is great!

[@fotiskogias3764]

Amazing, it was just the thing I was noticing missing from my architecture renderings . Loved The Video.

[@elmar4ello]

Thank you

[@justinle998]

Holy cow this was exactly what I needed!!!

[@mibrahim4245]

Smart !!

[@strangequark007]

Thanks for this tip. And wow the render ie the thumbnail, is really amazing!

[@DECODEDVFX]

Thanks. It's literally just a few of the assets I've modelled thrown together.

[@ronioclarenzo6137]

Great tutorial! Thanks!

[@Coco-xi9hq]

Sir you are amazing

[@MrMsti]

Awesome :D

[@AnatomyAcademy]

Always great tips

[@blenderiscool4307]

Very helpful and straightforward tutorial thank you

[@MoviesRemastered]

Really good tips. Good luck with your project.

[@Grillar]

aaaaaaaand genius as usual. Nice stuff once again!

[@briticalhit4987]

The timing of this couldn't be better. I'm about to render a large animation that's very much going to benefit from this, thanks :)

[@leicfoxUK]

Thank you, great video.

[@baderuk73]

Brilliant!!

[@Sam-oh6mt]

This videos awesome huge starwars fan here!

[@VentelHD]

Was avoiding it because these nodes don't support Optix, but man! This is a must have!!

[@DECODEDVFX]

Yeah, it's supported from 2.92

[@PrinceWesterburg]

AO is great for driving things like this. A simple ground fog plane (non-volumetric) can be made to fade around fences, lamposts, walls etc. But AO doesn't belong in lighting - Cycles is a fully unbiased renderer so adding an ancient shader like this for faux lighting effects is a big no-no!

[@jeffcrist2977]

Very useful. Thanks. Like your style.

[@shubhamkhilare146]

It's amazing

[@alberto9827]

Daaaaaaamn Thank you so much man!!! Everything star wars related is very much appreciated!!

[@lokyloky3420]

thank you!

[@PybroLachie]

Really great quick tip!

[@benjaminbeltran7004]

amazing!

[@ronwatson3237]

Thanks!! - very good advice my friend!

[@paulcole7144]

Nice tip, thanks.

[@ali32bit42]

the more robost method is blend textures. make a simple trim sheet with all the dirt effects on it. and use it as an overlay on the main material with a secondary uv map. the advantage is a faster render and not having to worry about external objects. also more detaild dirt and leak textures. you can also port those to game engines assuming that kind of decal is supported. and you dont have to paint anything since you can reuse the trimsheet.

[@DanielGrovePhoto]

Great tip! Same goes for any hardsurface stuff I assume. I need to use this more!

[@augustoramirez2538]

thanks, these kinds of details make or break a render

[@tremorlok6659]

You could pipe this into a noise node and then a displacement node to make the seam between surfaces look more natural too.

[@MarcoPaints]

Holy shit this is game changing for me... thank you so much!

[@maherf768]

good stuff, thank you!

[@harringtonday5319]

Great tip - Thankyou!:)🙏😀

[@indrakomara6966]

cool...

[@valtabohm]

thanks bro, very useful!

[@DatGuyGLK]

Thank you, this was exactly what i was missing!

[@andrewburyakov436]

idk, if you still check comments, but this video is awesome! Right now i help to draw a scene pictures for novel, and this trick changed photo so well and more real, like it almost photography.

[@DECODEDVFX]

Thank you!

[@robo1540]

great vid tbh, really useful and short

[@ShadyRonin]

Great tip! Love these short videos

[@PricelessCold]

great video keep up the realism tips

[@jurgenvantomme]

This is a amazing tip. Thank you so much for sharing.

[@yuvaraj8492]

wow.

[@gehriggosselin9468]

good heckin. fantastic

[@kavins2094]

Thanks for the quick tip. Really helpful

[@Automatik234]

Great tip! Thanks for making this!

[@metalstaff]

Thanx for the lesson! That's what i needed.

[@jonathanmarcelthome]

Thanks for this, this is great!

[@Sharal3D]

holy shit that was awesome

[@Uhfgood]

It's interesting you talk about dirt and grime. Well what if it's supposed to be brand new, and you want that extra bit that makes it feel like it's actually in the scene?

[@Spencer635]

Great content :) This reminds me of the techniques used in Jama Jurabaev's "Real Time Environment Design in Blender" course. Kind of funny, he actually uses star wars concepts in those videos.

[@kendricksparks4975]

Love your videos!

[@castletransport]

wow. Amazing :)

[@luisrossa]

Muy bueno!! Gracias

[@scottlee38]

Very useful! Thanks!

[@rikovladimir8655]

nice hack mate

[@ep8778]

a great tutorial !!! thanks a lot

[@noahgreenstein-sheppard66]

And, of course, if you have a convex building on a flat surface, you can just use Geometry > Position > Separate XYZ > Z axis, which is much faster.

[@williamnilsson4344]

Holy shit, thank you

[@robert-brydson-1]

wish we could "spray" shading onto the grounds etc ( image textures ) to "blotch" them up a bit

[@asadhabib8876]

Suuuupppperrrrr useful...

[@thetrends5670]

Thumbnail looks like "Mazar E Quaid, Jinnah Mausoleum"

[@tumimbasa1705]

Still useful in 2021!

[@9l_Kendr]

Спасибо)