I know that ambient occlusion should theoretically be canceled when a non-ambient light hits the object, at least if we aim for realism or simply for a convincing lighting system, but here we simply smash it onto the color. Is there a way to use ambient occlusion the way I say in Unity? And shouldn't it be better to use a separate map for the ambient occlusion in order to make it behave as I say?
As artists we have the freedom to use the AO however we want; to our liking. I operate within this freedom for realism and stylization, but especially stylization as with this course.
By nature AO is an incomplete and partially contrary aspect in the context of realistic lighting. But for using with Unity materials, I know we can supply an AO map to a specific AO channel in Unity's material. In that case you simply can bake out the AO as an individual texture map and chose to incorporate it into the color or choose not to. Up to you!