AmbientOcclusion

AmbientOcclusion [SSAO] belongs to Fusion's Deep Pixel/post-render workflow. The scene must be rasterized first: classic scene3d goes through Renderer3D, then AmbientOcclusion works on the resulting 2D image and auxiliary channels.

The orange Input is required and expects a 2D RGBA image carrying Z-Depth and Normals. In a native Fusion 3D workflow, enable RGBA, Z and Normal in Renderer3D Output Channels before feeding its Image output into AmbientOcclusion.

The green Camera input is also required. Connect the Camera3D, or a 3D scene containing the camera, that actually produced the input render. Camera data is needed to interpret depth/normals in the correct view context.

The blue Effect Mask is optional and only limits where the already computed 2D effect is applied. It does not replace the image/depth/normal data or the required camera connection.

Ambient occlusion approximates low-frequency environmental shadowing: creases, contact zones and nearby surfaces become darker because less surrounding light would reach them. It does not generate sharp shadows and does not replace diffuse/specular/key lighting.

Output Mode Color applies AO to the incoming image. Output Mode AO returns the pure grayscale occlusion factor for downstream multiply/grade workflows. AO mode is still an image output, not Fusion's separate mask datatype.

Hemisphere is the normal production baseline because samples are oriented around the surface normal. Sphere is a stylistic alternative with a substantially different response on flat surfaces.

Kernel Radius sets the scene/depth-space search distance for occluders. Too small misses nearby geometry; too large produces broad dirty shading and needs many more samples to recover quality.

Number of Samples controls sampling quality. Tune Radius first, then increase Samples only as needed to reduce noise or artifacts.

Lift, Gamma and Tint shape the finished AO response. They are look controls, not substitutes for missing Z/Normal data, a wrong camera or an inappropriate Kernel Radius.

Eye selects Mono/Left/Right stereo context. Camera selects the camera context available through the camera input; a direct single-camera workflow normally starts at Mono + Default.

SSAO is screen-space and can show edge/depth-discontinuity artifacts. Current Fusion 21 feature information still lists GPU-accelerated Ambient Occlusion rendering, while the bundled Inspector capture confirms the classic control set used by this article.