Millennium Falcon 3D model: Progress #3

I am still chipping away at this and spent another 2 or 3 hours on the model yesterday. I added a lot of detail on the central part and to the gun turrets. This render was from out of Keyshot 7.

I wasn't happy with the render as a lot of the detail is getting lost. I decided to research how to render an ambient occlusion pass to boost the shadows.

Ambient occlusion

In computer graphics, ambient occlusion is a shading and rendering technique used to calculate how exposed each point in a scene is to ambient lighting. For example, the interior of a tube is typically more occluded (and hence darker) than the exposed outer surfaces, and the deeper you go inside the tube, the more occluded (and darker) the lighting becomes. Ambient occlusion can be seen as an accessibility value that is calculated for each surface point.[1] In scenes with open sky this is done by estimating the amount of visible sky for each point, while in indoor environments only objects within a certain radius are taken into account and the walls are assumed to be the origin of the ambient light. The result is a diffuse, non-directional shading effect that casts no clear shadows but that darkens enclosed and sheltered areas and can affect the rendered image's overall tone. It is often used as a post-processing effect.
From Wikipedia

This pass basically ignores lighting information to cast shadows, rather it renders gathered shadows in recesses. It helps to pick out detail, such as around the plating on the hull.

I then took my normal render and occlusion passes into Photoshop, layering the ambient occlusion on top of the render. I then set the layer to multiply and dialled in a value of around 50%. I think you'll agree the shadows and details look better in this version.