Clay Rendering vs Ambient Occlusion

Clay rendering in 3dsMax is probably the most important skill every arch-viz student and practitioner should have. It not only lets you rapidly create good looking renders for the client, but it also helps you down the line when composting your final shots.

This Monday Movie looks at the difference between a traditional clay render, an ambient occlusion render, and an ambient occlusion pass. The differences are crucial to knowing when to use one over the other. To summarize, the clay render is the easiest to setup but the slowest to render and least flexible of the 3. The ambient occlusion render is harder to set up, but it’s got more flexibility to it. However, neither one can replace a true ambient occlusion pass, which is always good to know how to do.

Note that I don’t cover how to get your AO pass to handle displacement and bump-maps. We’ll have to cover that another day! By the way, is this not the crispest YouTube embed you’ve ever seen?