Where to connect Ambient Occlusion?

[contactsprky]

Where can I connect Ambient Occlusion in my nod system?

[peter_horvath]

Well, I guess it depends on the effect you want to achieve.

Maybe the documentation helps: https://help.autodesk.com/view/ARNOL/ENU/?guid=arnold_core_ac_ambient_occlusion_html

In this example for instance, the scene is rendered with ambient occlusion as the root surface shader.

https://help.autodesk.com/view/ARNOL/ENU/?guid=arnold_for_cinema_4d_ci_Lighting_a_Room_ci_Rendering_...

[contactsprky]

And if I need to connect a Normal map to complement the texture, where exactly do I connect it?

[peter_horvath]

The ambient_occlusion shader has a Normal slot just like standard_surface.

[contactsprky]

Okay, I'm going to hook the image into Normal AO. Where exactly do I connect the AO node to the standard_surface?

[peter_horvath]

I guess you might want to use AO instead of standard surface. But again, it really depends on what you want to achieve with it. If you want a separate AO pass for instance, then you can connect it to an aov_write shader input and use it as a global AOV shader in the render settings.