does the famous 'GI problem' with cube-maps apply to ambient occlusion as well?

[shadowphile]

heh, I have nothing more to say, it's all in the subject line 

[Henry Blewer]

I don't remember reading this post. It must be quite old. I would not think so. The Ambient Occlusion light is a different type than Global Illumination. Do a small render with just enough quality to get a look. 400x300 ,render detail 0.5, should let you know.

[shadowphile]

 

[shadowphile]

I managed to get some artifacts, although I was at very low detail.
Turns out however, that I am finding that I prefer the results from my three scattered (ambient) light sources.
I put one on top, one opposite the sun, and two on each side.  The opposite one is colored like the terrain facing toward the sun to simulate the backwash of light coming from it, it lights up faces away from the sun very realistically but with more shadowy structure than either GI or AO.  Unfortunately 3 extra lights seem to add a lot more render time than one enviro-light.
Unsurprisingly, AO looks similar (but different  ) to GI except with less color.

Examples:
-No envirolight, 3 backlights
[attachthumb=1]
-GI, no backlights...notice the colored clouds and lack of any sharp shadows
[attachthumb=2]
-AO only, no backlights...quite a bit of structure is highlighted, but again the shadows lack presence.
[attachthumb=3]

[Henry Blewer]

I think your three light set up worked the best. I some times use two lights. The strong light is low to the horizon and in front of the camera. The fill light is behind and right or left of the camera. I turn off the shadows on the fill light. I also set the fill lights strength to less than 0.5

[Oshyan]

I would think AO would have the same problem as it comes down to an inability to fully account for scenery outside the camera's view (a generally sensible approach, otherwise render times would skyrocket). AO and GI attempt to achieve similar-ish things in terms of global illumination, taking into account the effect of light in the environment and not just direct sources. So if your camera view shows a part of the scene without much ambient light and you render, then render an adjacent view with a lot more ambient I think you would get a similar mismatch. Something definitely worth testing though.

- Oshyan