The Ultimate Guide to Ambient Occlusion Style in SketchUp

The Ambient Occlusion is a SketchUp rendering extension which helps to render SketchUp design models in an easy and effective way. The Ambient Occlusion extension is the first visualisation extension, which helps to highlight the space and relations among the design objects by creating previews of the 3D design models. The Ambient Occlusion extension is an intuitive extension for the SketchUp software, which enables users to experience an effortless rendering process. There are different versions of the Ambient Occlusion extension available, which provide exceptional quality for various types of SketchUp editions and enhanced animations.

The Ambient Occlusion extension is compatible with different SketchUp versions, including SketchUp 2021, SketchUp 2022, SketchUp 2023, SketchUp 2024, and SketchUp 2025. The Ambient Occlusion extension is also supported by Mac and Windows. The supported language for this SketchUp extension is English.

Features of Ambient Occlusion

There are several design features in the Ambient Occlusion extension for the SketchUp software, which are as follows:

➢ Users are able to add a fast animation effect in the design, which helps to get more compelling presentations.
➢ There is also animation support in the Ambient Occlusion extension while watching the videos.
➢ There is a batch rendering feature in the Ambient Occlusion extension.
➢ There is also SketchFX Integration feature in the Ambient Occlusion extension for the SketchUp software.
➢ The Ambient Occlusion extension also supports the animators with the help of Fredo6.

How to install Ambient Occlusion for SketchUp software

For installing the Ambient Occlusion extension, users need to follow several steps, which are as follows:

➢ In the first step, users need to select the Extensions option from the Extension Manager.
➢ In the next step, users have to click on the Install Extension button.
➢ After that, the Open dialog box appeared. Then, the users have to navigate to the .rbz file that is saved on the computer. Users have to select the file and click the ok button in the case of Microsoft Windows or has to click on the Open button in the case of the Mac OS.

How to use Ambient Occlusion for SketchUp software

After installing the Ambient Occlusion extension, users can use this SketchUp extension. For visualising the 3D design model, users have to go to the menu and click on the Extensions button and then go to the Ambient Occlusion button, and after that, users have to click on the Render option. After that, the rendering windows have opened. This enables the users to play with the options that are available on the Windows toolbar. In addition, users can access the help manual. In this context, the user has to go to the Extensions option, then go to the Ambient Occlusion option and click on the help button.

How to view the Ambient Occlusion

The Ambient Occlusion can not be visible in the 3D document while it is in edit mode. In this context, users have to enter the Preview Mode to preview the camera effect of the Ambient Occlusion. The preview mode of the Ambient Occlusion extension can be found at the Command Bar, which enables users to hide the 3D Document triad. This process can be done with the help of the hide wireframe selection options of the Ambient Occlusion extension. This helps to show the Camera entities and helps to enable any kind of camera effect.

Information panel of the Ambient Occlusion extension

The information panel of the Ambient Occlusion extension enables users to change the following settings to suit their design needs.

➢ There is an enable and disable feature of the Ambient Occlusion extension on the default camera.
➢ The Falloff Depth feature helps to determine the closeness of the two surfaces which has been required to cause an occlusion effect.
➢ The Ambient Occlusion helps to perform the blur passes, which helps to smooth the effect of the Ambient Occlusion. In this case, the low value helps to create a noisy effect, whereas, higher value helps to create a smooth effect.
➢ The size of the texture can be controlled by the Downsampling feature of the Ambient Occlusion extension. In this context, the high-resolution image has been created by the lower value, and the final render quality has been reduced by the higher value.

➢ The radius feature helps to determine the distance between the samples in the actual image. The higher value of the radius feature helps to indicate the pixels that are on the surface, which can be darkened more. In addition, the radius effect also has a smoothing effect on the Ambient Occlusion, and this can be done by increasing the value of the radius.

To learn more, watch the following video tutorial.

Video Source: fluidinteractive

Download Ambient Occlusion for SketchUp Software

➢ The intensity feature helps to make the scene darker on each side.