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13. Mari 4 - Ambient Occlusion and Tri-Planar Procedurals

Part of Mari 4 - Fundamentals and Best Practice.

Contents:

In the Video:

Advanced Tip: Advanced shader and rendering technique.

Test Your Knowledge

1.   How do you display ambient occlusion on the geometry?
ClosedReveal answer

From the top navigation menu, select Objects, and then choose Ambient Occlusion to calculate the ambient occlusion.

2.   What is a Tri-Planar projection?
ClosedReveal answer

A tri-planar projection takes an image and projects it across the X,Y,Z surfaces of your model, but unlike the Tile node, it does not rely on UVs.

Either create a Tri-Planar node in the Node Graph, or right-click an image in the Image Manager and select Add to Node Graph > As TriPlanar projection.

Exercise

1.   In the Node Graph, create a new node by pressing Tab on the keyboard to call in the node menu.
2.   Select Ambient Occlusion from the dropdown menu, or type Ambient Occlusion and press Enter.
3.   Click on the Ambient Occlusion node in the Node Graph and press 1 on the keyboard to connect that node to the viewer.

Your model should be flat white as the ambient occlusion as not been calculated yet.

Tip:  If your Node Graph is maximized, press Space on the keyboard to return to the previous window size.

4.   From the top navigation menu, select Object > Ambient Occlusion to calculate the ambient occlusion and display the result in the viewer.
5.   To go back to viewing your paint, select the shader in the Node Graph (in this case Principled BRDF) and then press 1 on the keyboard to view from the shader output.