Shadow Display

[DJAB]

Hi guys,

 

See attached screen shot. Any ideas why the shadows arnt showing properly for the curtain wall? I have a simple maxwell glass in between the mullions, but Form Z seams to think its a solid wall, only letting light in through the door opening.

 

Am I missing anything obvious?

 

(Im still having trouble with my maxwell license at the moment so I can't test to see if its rendering properly.)

[Andrew West]

Do you have shadow casting turned off for your glass material??

[Tech]

Hi Andy,

 

The Shaded Display Mode does not generate Transparent Shadows -- so you will need to turn off its cast shadow attribute as Andrew suggests to see it in that display mode.  

 

If you need any further help, please post a link to your file so we can see what else to suggest.

[Des]

In addition to what was suggested above and on a different note, turn off shadow casting for your ground object. Your shadows will look better were they meet the casting walls at the corners as a result.

Although you have the shadow maps set at massive, the ground plane object isn't allowing the shadows to be "tight" in the corners at the moment.

 

Des

[DJAB]

Hi Des,

 

Thanks for the tip.

 

I turned off the cast shadows setting for the ground plane, but take a look at the results. With the ground plane casting shadows the shadows have a soft edge, but when turned off, they are very sharp. Why would this be?

 

Even with cast shadows turned on, it should be mathematically impossible for the ground plane to actually cast a shadow onto anything that I have modelled, being that the ground is on the bottom, no?

 

Andy

[Des]

I'll leave it to Ztech to explain about the shadow map size. It's something to do with the overall size of the model in relation to the shadow map settings.

Yes, the shadows will become sharper, but you can turn up the softness to compensate as well as changing the "darkness" of the shadows.

Also play with the Ambient Occlusion.

The real reason for turning off the shadow casting for the ground plane is so the shadows are "tight" into the corners on your model.

 

Des

[Tech]

Hi Andy,

 

The Shaded Full mode uses Shadow Maps to generate the shadows, which is the smallest rectangle that encompases all the objects that cast shadows for that specific view.  If you are then looking at only a portion of this scene, you will effectively be "zooming into this shadow map" and you can see "artifacts" that make the shadows look more blury than they otherwise would. 

 

Turning off the Shadow Casting for the Ground Plane can reduce the extents of this shadow map, which will give you better results.  And as Des notes, you can increase the Softness if you like.  You can also choose a larger Shadow Map size, but that will use more video memory -- so if possible limiting the shadow map is a better first step, and increasing the quality should only be used when necessary (and if you have enough extra video memory for this).

 

Your logic about the ground plane never casting shadows on the other objects is not something that the computer understands.  Therefore, turning off the Shadow Casting effectively "tells the system what may be obvious for you."  And if this object will not obscure any other objects, and if you will be rendering with RenderZone, setting the RenderZone Attributes to Render As Backdrop will make the rendering considerably faster, as this eliminates the calculations to see if any objects should be obscured by the "backdrop" object(s).

 

Does that help?