DFAO doesn't work with orthographic cameras

Not sure if it’s common practice to report bugs on WIP features, but here goes:

Steps:

  1. Create a top-down project.
  2. Enable DFAO as described here: Distance Field Ambient Occlusion in Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.2 Documentation
  3. Set camera projection to orthographic.
  4. Observe no DFAO and weird outlines around non-static meshes.

I know it’s WIP, and maybe the technique simply isnt’t compatible with orthographic projections. If that is the case it would be nice if it’s listed under limitations section of the documented linked above. And if it’s a bug, it’s a bug :slight_smile:

Hi ,

Thank you for reporting this. I’ve spoken with one of the developers with this issue and it is a bug. DFAO should not work in conjunction with DFAO and this will be fixed.

I will also put in a ticket to have DFAO mention the limitation of Orthographic view mode.

Thank you for your report and for including repro steps. It is always appreciated! :slight_smile:

Tim

Hi Tim,

Thank you for the quick reply, though I’m a little confused about your answer.

You wrote: “DFAO should not work in conjunction with DFAO and this will be fixed.” If it’s a bug maybe the answer should be changed into something like “DFAO should work in conjunction with orthographic projections, and this will be fixed”?

Oops! A little proof reading would have helped here. :confused:

Meant that DFAO should not work with Orthographic projection. This will be fixed so that DFAO is not enabled in Orthographic projection. That’s why you see the outline around your character. The bug was that it was enabled to render in the Orthographic view mode to begin with.

For reference here is my test images for anyone else who may have the issue.

I’ve changed the occlusion color to red to be easier to see the difference.

Standard View:

Orthographic view mode:
Everything in scene is a static mesh with exception of the three cubes at the bottom that are BSP which does not work with DFAO. You can see the issues around the player character as well.

Apologies for the confusion. :slight_smile:

Tim

Aha! That clears it up. Thank you for the thorough response.