AO maps and Gloss maps

Question

This was in the "working with diffuse maps" documentation for Lumberyard "*The diffuse map should not contain any lighting, shading or shadowing information, as all this gets added dynamically by Lumberyard."*

So as far as I can tell, lumberyard doesn't really use an AO map, but then it also says this: *"In certain cases, pre-baked ambient occlusion (AO) is required, which is stored in a dedicated AO map in the diffuse channel of the Detail Map. For more information, see Working with Detail Maps"* but it says to keep detail map sizes small like 512x512 so that's not really for AO.

Question: “what's the deal with AO maps and Gloss maps?” Since we don't really know what to do with them.

He also just mentioned that “I can't change the material on any object in lumberyard, not even their toad, any of their built in objects I can't assign a texture to. All of the buttons in the material editor are greyed out, so I can't apply a material to a selection, but if I hit the button it says in the log "applied material to selection" which is a lie, because I made a solid blue material and that didn't show up on my model”.

That question is from our experienced 3D Modeler, who is using Substance Designer to create some lava flows for our prototype map, and who is working with the level designer to get the model(s) into the engine. He has set up Lumberyard, he reads everything in detail, and has had lots of issues along the way and put his 14K model in there and is having difficultly determining what Substance textures layers relate to Lumberyard.

Accepted Answer

Hey @REDACTEDUSER
Let's see if we can help clear up the confusion around AO Maps and Gloss Maps. I also have follow-ups regarding the material assignment problems your artist and designer are encountering.
**AO Maps**
We do not have true support for object-based AO maps, though you can get some information out of the Detail Map as you mentioned previously. With the [Detail Maps](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/userguide/mat-maps-detail-intro.html), we only have 512x512 as a guideline for performance reasons, though by all means for your project you may need to increase the size. It's just a guideline in case you find you hit performance issues later, this might be one of the first things to check if you have a lot of large Detail Maps. But that being said, the Detail Maps are not really the same as true AO maps.
We do have a [Height Map Ambient Occlusion](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/userguide/mat-shaders-heightmap_ambient_occlusion.html) feature that is more of a global-based AO that works really well for outdoor environments. This still won't fit what your artist is looking for, but it's something else to look into if you still want some type of AO for your level.
**Gloss Maps**
Our workflow for Gloss Maps is a bit different since there is not a stand-alone texture map location in the materials. The [Gloss Maps](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/userguide/mat-maps-gloss.html) are stored in the alpha channel of the [Normal Map](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/userguide/mat-maps-normal-gloss.html), and for the Asset Processor to compress the normal map texture with gloss correctly for your game, it is recommended to use the ["_ddna" suffix](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/userguide/mat-texture-types.html) for the texture name.
**Material Assignment**

1. Just to clarify, which project/set of assets are the built-in objects that you are referring to? For example, if you're just using SamplesProject or if you grabbed assets from the BeachCity asset package.
1. There may be a bug with the states of the buttons in the Material Editor in 1.8. I just did a quick test, and I'm seeing them as the lighter gray (which appears more like the active state) when I have nothing selected, but then they go to a darker gray (which appears more like the deactive state or not-usable state). Apologies for the confusion on this, I'll get a bug filed.
1. Could you clarify if you are using the Brush system or Component Entity system for placing objects in the level, or if you're doing something else to try and assign materials to objects? I'm wondering in what case the material does not actually assign properly to the selected object, so it would be useful to have steps to reproduce the problem.
Let us know if that helps!

Answer

Sorry to resurrect this question but Ambient Occlusion map is actually supported in illum shader youjust need to activate it in shader generation params.

Answer

Hey @REDACTEDUSER

Answer

Thanks so much!

Answer

Thanks, this has cleared it up for our dev team. I have posted this link in our slack.

AO maps and Gloss maps

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