Ambient Occlusion (AO) Map Generator

NormalMapAI (normalmapai.com) is a free online AO map generator that extracts a grayscale ambient occlusion (AO map) from any 2D surface photo directly in your browser. It runs 100% locally via WebGL2 with real-time 3D contact shadow preview and instant PNG or ORM-packed ZIP export.

Upload your JPG, PNG, or WebP texture into the NormalMapAI AO map generator, adjust the AO Radius and AO Strength sliders to darken deep crevices while keeping flat areas bright white, and verify the contact shadows on the 3D shader ball before exporting your AO map PNG.

An AO map (ambient occlusion map) attenuates indirect ambient light inside cracks, mortar grooves, folds, and cavities where scattered light cannot easily reach. Adding an AO map grounds surface details and prevents materials from looking flat or overly bright in shadowed areas.

Unreal Engine 5 and Godot 4 use ORM channel packing, where the Red channel stores the AO map (Occlusion), Green stores Roughness, and Blue stores Metallic. When you choose the Unreal or Godot export preset in NormalMapAI, the generator packs your AO map into the ORM Red channel automatically.

In Blender Cycles or Eevee, load your AO map into an Image Texture node set to Non-Color. Because Principled BSDF does not have a dedicated ambient socket, multiply your Base Color by the AO map using a Mix Color node (Multiply mode, Factor 0.3–0.8) or feed the AO map into a glTF Material Output node for game export.

In Unity URP Lit shaders, assign your exported AO map PNG directly to the Occlusion slot and adjust the Occlusion Strength slider. In Unity HDRP, the Mask Map packs the AO map into the Green channel, or you can use the NormalMapAI Unity export preset for ready-to-import textures.

An image-derived AO map from NormalMapAI estimates micro-cavity shadowing from texture height and luminance (such as brick mortar, bark fissures, or fabric weave). A mesh-baked AO map is raytraced from 3D high-poly geometry in Blender or Substance to capture large-scale object self-shadowing; both can be multiplied together.

Use a small AO map radius with moderate strength for fine micro-surfaces like fabric, leather, and brushed metal so the material does not look dirty. Use a wider AO map radius and stronger contrast for deep stone walls, cobblestones, and carved wood panels.

Always set your AO map to Non-Color (Linear / sRGB off) in Blender, Unreal Engine, Unity, and Godot. Because an AO map represents a numerical light-attenuation multiplier from 0.0 to 1.0, leaving sRGB enabled will curve midtones and make crevices overly dark.

If your source photo is not seamless, the AO map radius sampling will darken or mismatch across tile boundaries. Repair your photo in the NormalMapAI Seamless Texture tool first, then generate your AO map so cavity shadows wrap smoothly across every UV tile.

Yes, NormalMapAI computes your AO map in sync with tangent-space normal, 16-bit height, displacement, roughness, metallic, and specular maps from the same photo, letting you download either the standalone AO map PNG or a full engine ZIP.

Yes, every AO map and PBR pack you export from NormalMapAI is 100% royalty-free for commercial games, archviz, and client projects. All processing happens locally in your browser via WebGL2, so your source textures never leave your device.