Painted Shadows: The Deceptive Rendering of Baked Ambient Occlusion

When you walk into a dimly lit, atmospheric room in a classic 3D video game, the shadows gathering in the corners and under the furniture look incredibly realistic. You assume the game console is calculating the complex behavior of light bouncing around the room. In reality, the console is doing absolutely nothing. The shadows are completely fake. Calculating real-time light bounces requires imm...