Unreal Engine 5 Rendering Ambient Occlusion with Post Process Material

This is instructional video of creating post proces material with ambient occlusion pass using Unreal Engine 5. There's no need for any third-party plugin. I hope that you'll get the idea how to access buffer visualization data in material editor.

[@artcontractor2351]

This is first time I have seen this done saving a post process material. Really cool. T🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@umarcga7823]

doesn't work at all unless I turn all the global illumination method to screen space in ppv that is not what I think you are showing in the video. I mean one would want to use lumen GI with AO added on top... how would you do that?

[@TheLarkaanimation]

This almost helped me with my custom render passes in Movie Capture (Legacy). I didn't make the M_PostProssessAO material yet, thinking what I did so far in the video helped. The Ambient Occlusion maps show up while rendering, but the surroundings are very bright that I can't see a good chunk of the object. That and my scene is very blurry for some reason. It's showing on my render passes.

[@thelightsarebroken]

Hey do you know how to get Post Process materials to work in the Movie render queue?

[@ericelftman731]

This is a great concept. I've been struggling trying to get the Post Process materials to work in the Movie render queue setting. No real luck with that at the moment. Also love your video on world depth pass. Would a post process like this also work on Motion Vectors?

[@ArchitectVirendraChhatria]

This tutorial really helped me.. ! Thanks

[@ArchitectVirendraChhatria]

But i can't changes the AO in real time.. though AO mode is activated

[@HuggiesiAm]

Doesn't work with Unreal Engine 5.3.

[@pipipopo2003]

This is GREAT idea !!Thanks!! one Question , how to increase the resolution of AO??

[@kentuckyvapors464]

wow VERY poggers!!! upvoted

[@shadownildo5002]

Just to Record, try it in 5.3 and wont work :( when apply the material, the scene becomes black and white

[@ArchitectVirendraChhatria]

How to work with nanites? What's the organized way that we should follow to avoid lagging unreal file

[@cr0uchingtiger]

Not working for me in 5.2. Issue1: When i tweak the intensity and radius nothing happens Issue2: when I go to save the material I get: The current material has compilation errors, so it will not render correctly in feature level SM6. Issue3: when I switched back to lit mode, all my shadows were black.

[@ARTFX3D]

Please be aware that the time of recording of this tutorial was before release of UE 5.2 so if you want to get same effect as in the video use the same version of Unreal.

[@senimansantai]

@@ARTFX3D will you post AO setup for 5.2 version sir ? i have the same issue with 5.2

[@ethanwasme4307]

wonder if this works in unlit if you lerp into emissive color

[@AlfY33]

[SM5] SceneTexture expressions cannot be used in opaque materials when i tring to link the scene texture to emissive

[@ArchitectVirendraChhatria]

But i have one problem, why the occlusion is not visible in the Lit Mode ?? It's is only visible in post process volume but neither in Lit Mode ,nor in rendered image

[@MrRobmeyers]

Were you able to resolve this issue? To be able to see AO in Lit Mode?

[@MrRobmeyers]

I could not switch to screen space GI as was suggested - could you?

[@ArchitectVirendraChhatria]

@@MrRobmeyers I tried fixing that but still not satisfied with the result. In my case, I was able to turn on occlusion mode. But AO is not visible in LIT mode.. One thing we can do is assigning occlusion in the material 🥲

[@Sunny19898]

This works great, but I've been having trouble rendering just the AO pass in movie queue. Does anyone have any advice on that?

[@ARTFX3D]

docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-US/AnimatingObjects/Sequencer/Workflow/RenderAndExport/RenderMovieSettings/

[@ARTFX3D]

If you don’t use Movie Render Queue you can access AOV’s like in standard VFX workflow. Check the documentation. It works in 5.2 😉

[@alinarangi7826]

Hi man, thanks for your tutorial, im new to unreal, in term of optimization, which one is better, bake Ao map or use this material? thanks in advance

[@ARTFX3D]

Bake is better.

[@giovannipanarello]

Thanks a lot for this, is there a way to make a id color /cryptomatte random color material? This could be very helpfull to make mask.

[@ARTFX3D]

Read this document under section Object ID Grouping. docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/AnimatingObjects/Sequencer/HighQualityMediaExport/RenderSettings/RenderPasses/

[@giovannipanarello]

@@ARTFX3D tried to use this option, but i use unreal for concept art, I don’t need to export a sequence, just to take a screenshot with different way. Thanks anyway :)

[@dylankuzmick3122]

Is there any way to get this working with the path tracer? I'd like to have objects blend together using masks generated from AO, rendered in the path tracer for cinematics.

[@ARTFX3D]

You should try to create Post Process Material with inverted fresnel node plugged into emission and render it out as faked AO. Let me know if it works ;-)

[@MrRobmeyers]

@@ARTFX3D Alot of people having difficulty following your AO Solution...Any chance this is no longer possible in UE5.0? I cannot change to screen space global illumination (beta) in Project Settings? Because of this detail, I am unable to get this to work Lit Mode? Any thoughts?

[@ARTFX3D]

@@MrRobmeyers If you are using different version of Unreal Engine you probably won’t be able to get the same effects as in tutorial. People won’t understand that you can’t install Unreal Engine 4.25 or 5.2 and then comment: “It doesn’t work”. There are lot of changes from version to version of Unreal Engine and it is impossible have one tutorial for all.

[@MrRobmeyers]

@@ARTFX3D True, but in my particular case...I'm in 5.0.3 and as I understand it, SSAO is no longer in 5.0.3

[@peteprods]

Get rid of music, it's competing with your voice or at least reduce its volume.

[@mindped]

unreal engine 5 actually already has some command lines you can enter to enable ssao with lumen. So I don't see the point of this tutorial. But its interesting you can do that either way.

[@kaiserakita]

Mind giving us that command plz ?

[@kurokishizx]

what's the command line may I ask?

[@mindped]

@@kurokishizx r.Lumen.DiffuseIndirect.SSAO 1 r.Lumen.ScreenProbeGather.ShortRangeAO 0 Then adjust ao in post processing.. Fade out distance must be larger to remove far away black artifact

[@mindped]

@@kaiserakita r.Lumen.DiffuseIndirect.SSAO 1 r.Lumen.ScreenProbeGather.ShortRangeAO 0 Then adjust ao in post processing.. Fade out distance must be larger to remove far away black artifact

[@Mr.Mirage_YT]

@@mindpedhi can u help me with AO ? My ao never works ? Why? In lit mode lumen no matter how much values i adjust in ppv nothing happens , whatever scene it is

[@Skel150]

When I try to connect the scene Texture's colour to the emissive Colour it says " [SM5] SceneTexture expressions cannot be used in opaque materials except if used with the single layer water shading model" how do I fix this?

[@SuleBandi]

Same here

[@razerana5194]

change material domain from surface to post process

[@MrRobmeyers]

@@razerana5194 I changed the material domain to post process but it blown out white...in Viewport Lit Mode. The screen space global illumination (beta) is not possible to select in Project Settings?

[@MrRobmeyers]

I'm getting the same error, I am assuming you could not change to screen space global illumination (beta) in Project Settings? Were you able to get this to work Lit Mode?

[@Skel150]

@@MrRobmeyers No, sorry