This documentation provides everything you need to use AmbientOcclusion for Revit effectively. It explains the interface, settings, workflows, and advanced features step by step. Whether you are a new or experienced user, this guide will help you understand the add-in and integrate it smoothly into your daily Revit work.

Revit Panel

You’ll find AmbientOcclusion for Revit inside the FluidInteractive panel inside Revit. Here you’ll find the following buttons:

This is the main AmbientOcclusion button: it will open the render window

Opens a dropdown menu with the following options: Help: Opens this documentation page in your web browser. Forum: Redirects you to the AmbientOcclusion community forums. Buy Now: Opens the webpage where you can purchase licenses. User Panel: Opens your user panel to manage subscriptions and downloads. License Information: Displays a window showing the current status of your license or trial version.

Main Toolbar

	Start / resume rendering
	Pause rendering / stop scene extraction
	Save rendering image to file
	Open preset menu. See presets chapter for more information
	Choose rendering mode. See rendering mode chapter for more information
	Choose rendering resolution
	Choose rendering quality, in samples per pixel
	Overall rendering gain. This makes the rendering brighter or darker
	Occlusion distance: the higher, the darker you’ll see shadows due to ambient occlusion
	Open background settings. See background settings chapter for more information
	Open environment settings. See environment settings chapter for more information
	Lens radius and position used for depth of field effect. See depth of field chapter for more information
	Open shadow settings menu. See shadow settings chapter for more information
	Opacity of the rendered objects: the lower, the more they will be transparent
	Bump scale: this increased or decreases the bump mapping effect of materials
	Open material editor: see material editor chapter for more information

Secondary toolbar

	When enabled, changes to the view used for current rendering won’t make the rendering restart
	Clear cache and restart rendering; can be used if any change done to Revit’s document does not apply to current rendering
	Fit resolution to match current view’s aspect ratio
	Fit render image to window
	Toggle render image red channel
	Toggle render image green channel
	Toggle render image blue channel
	Toggle render image alpha channel

Presets

Presets store all rendering settings in a single, reusable configuration that can be applied instantly. AmbientOcclusion includes several built-in presets, and users can create and save their own (with the “Save Preset As…” menu item) for different workflows or visual styles. This feature ensures consistency, speeds up setup, and makes switching between preferred looks effortless.

Rendering mode

AmbientOcclusion offers three rendering modes: Black & White, Colored, and Global Illumination. The first two use fast, simplified algorithms ideal for quick studies and clear visual communication. Global Illumination provides a slower but far more realistic result, accurately simulating light behavior for high-quality, presentation-ready images.

Background settings

In this menu, you’ll find the following items:

• Uniform Color: This color is used as the background when use uniform color is enabled.
• Background Gain: Adjusts the brightness of the background.
• Download Backgrounds: Allows you to download additional background images from the internet.
• Backgrounds Folder: Opens the folder where AmbientOcclusion stores and searches for available background images.
• Use Uniform Color: When enabled, the selected uniform color is used as the background.
• Use Environment: When enabled, the environment image is used as the background. See the environment settings chapter for details. Note that orthographic views always display a uniform color instead of the environment image.

Environment settings

An environment is a 360° image surrounding the scene, used as light source. It can be used also as background if use enviroment option is active in background settings. It provides realistic illumination, reflections, and overall atmosphere, greatly enhancing the rendering’s realism. By using an environment, the scene inherits natural lighting conditions without the need for complex manual light setups.

In this menu, you’ll find the following items:

• Uniform Color: This color is used as the background when use uniform color is enabled.
• Environment Gain: Adjusts the brightness of the environment.
• Rotation: Adjust the environment rotation.
• Download Environments: Allows you to download additional environments from the internet.
• Environments Folder: Opens the folder where AmbientOcclusion stores and searches for available enviroment images.
• Use Uniform Color: When enabled, the selected uniform color is used as the background.

Depth of field

AmbientOcclusion includes a depth of field effect, controlled by two parameters: lens radius, which defines the strength of the blur (larger values increase the effect), and lens position, which sets the focus point in the scene.

Shadow settings

In AmbientOcclusion, when not using Global Illumination mode, the rendering includes both environment shadows and the sun shadows defined by Revit’s sun settings. This menu provides three controls:

• Enabled — Toggles the Revit sun shadows on or off.
• Contrast — Adjusts how strong or pronounced the shadows appear.
• Softness — Controls how sharp or diffused the shadow edges are.

These settings help refine lighting clarity and enhance overall scene readability.

Material editor

The Material Editor in AmbientOcclusion allows you to override Revit materials easily by matching their names through several flexible methods. This makes adjusting rendering results fast and intuitive. You can fine-tune colors, reflections, emission, and other properties, ensuring full control over how materials appear in the final render.

In the Material Editor, the list on the left defines material overrides, applied from top to bottom. Each entry replaces matching Revit materials with the properties you set. You can reorder, add, clone, or delete items to customize how materials are prioritized and rendered.

	Create a new material
	Clone selected material
	Delete selected material
	Move selected material up in the list. This will give more precedence to this material while matching with Revit’s materials
	Move selected material down in the list. This will give less precedence to this material while matching with Revit’s materials