(SSAO) Ambient Occlusion Video Setting

[Vioxtar 10]

I think the ambient occlusion setting (or SSAO) that ARMAIII Beta offers right now is very weak. The overall visual effect is minimal to absent, and it slaps the performance down immensely, (for me from 60 FPS to around 45-50 FPS) and this needs work. Other games manage to do it at very minimal performance cost and it looks far better than it does on ARMAIII.

ARMAIII Beta's textures, models, and overall content and look can sometimes be a bit bland and 'pale', and ambient occlusion is one of these things that can solve that very easily by blending all the individual visual elements into one juicy looking picture.

I'd love to see it improved in the next patch.

[NeuroFunker 11]

games from 2011 or beyond, already had HBAO and HDAO, which do look a lot better then SSAO, also are more optimized. I see no reasons, why BIS wouldn't add this to arma III, maybe later with defernd chading.

[Sneakson 1]

SSAO is a big, big performance hit and only adds some minimal shading you couldn't even tell was there unless you looked at screenshot comparisons.

[DaRkL3AD3R 1]

games from 2011 or beyond, already had HBAO and HDAO, which do look a lot better then SSAO, also are more optimized. I see no reasons, why BIS wouldn't add this to arma III, maybe later with defernd chading.

Don't hold your breath for deferred rendering. It's highly unlikely this late in the development cycle that they would switch rendering methods at all.

To the OP I agree the current implementation of SSAO is weak, with weak being a massive understatement. For the performance toll you simply cannot justify any visual gains at all. It's near impossible to distinguish the difference off and on.

[twistking 204]

making the effect more visible should just be a config change, shouldn't it?

in other games SSAO is so extreme, it has already a cartnoonish look to it (farc cry 3 for example). i think what demands performance is rendering quality of SSAO. the strengths of SSAO effect applied should not affect performance. not completely sure, though..

[Anachoretes 10]

Just turn it off. Visible only on cockpits but with wrong radius. With a huge appetite. No, thanks.

[frostwyrm333 1]

I think that SSAO doesn't work for Arma just because theres not much geometry and objects and the scenes are relatively simple so the visual impact is barely visible.

Also some assets have baked fake shadows into the texture, you can see this in the interiors.

Even when people try to force it through enhancers theres not much difference.

[Anachoretes 10]

AO works fine in scenes full of details and obejcts, with modest\simple lights.

[Vioxtar 10]

Just imagine if this:

http://filesmelt.com/dl/cumoff.jpg (431 kB)

Could look something like this:

http://filesmelt.com/dl/cumon.jpg (417 kB)

[Victim9l3 11]

Vioxtar, you aren't using shadows. so of course it's a more noticeable difference in your pictures.

[Vioxtar 10]

I actually was lol it's just overcast was brought up to maximum so there was no sun hence no shadows.