CGFX Plugin

with shadows and screen space ambient occlusion


This is a plugin I wrote for Goldtooth Creative back in the end of 2010. (Thanks to Goldtooth for allowing me to post this). It was used in the game Deus Ex: Human Revolution to render the shadows in all the cut scenes.

The plugin is a modification of the Maya Cgfx plugin, which I enhanced to:


Lights with shadow maps

The plugin allows artists to see shadows in all viewports as they work. Since SSAO requires fremebuffering, it can only be seen in a specially constructed viewport.

Maya viewport with shadows

Here is a video of a Maya session with shadowed lights in a regular Maya viewport:


Screen space ambient occlusion

This shows two renderings of the same geometry side by side. The first shows the SSAO buffer alone, the second shows it composited into the scene:

Dragon rendered using SSAO. Dragon with SSAO composited over color.

Rendering a room in the viewport

Here are some renderings of a room I created. In these, shadows are disabled so that the SSAO is more apparent:

Room rendered using SSAO. Room rendered using SSAO. Room rendered using SSAO. Room rendered using SSAO.

And the same room with shadows and colored lights:

Room rendered using SSAO and shadow maps. Room rendered using SSAO and shadow maps.


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