Shading with ambient occlusion

- [Instructor] Ambient occlusion is a shading effect…that detects the distance between nearby surfaces.…Ambient occlusion is not needed…in a lighting context with Arnold,…because the global illumination is brute force.…It's calculated on every pixel.…There's no need to…add cracks and crevices with ambient occlusion…like you might in a previous work flow.…But ambient occlusion can still play a role…in a shader network.…For example, I want to apply a shading effect…to this picture frame where the recessed areas…will be a little bit darker,…and AO is a perfect candidate for that task.…

Do an active shade,…select the prospective viewport,…and click the ActiveShade button.…Open up the material editor,…and I've already got a material assigned to the frame,…and it's called frame silver arnold standard.…We can double-click on that to load its parameters.…To make the demonstration quite clear,…let's temporarily disconnect the bump map.…In the view we can select the wire…connecting the bump 2D node…with the frame silver normal input.…