SSAO is creating black shading on particles.
Yes, ssao does not work with transparent models.
I’ll have to look at it, it’s basically the very same reason shadows were not working with transparent textures (but they do since recently).
Btw there is no point in computing ssao on a particle effect like explosion, maybe i should only use objects in the shadow buckets for SSAO…
I’ll keep you informed on this issue.
Thank you. 
When computing depth and normal buffer, you can discard if the alpha is less than <= .5
This is how transparent shadow works