area lights cannot cast area shadows?!

[oluv]

what's this?

 

i was trying to light a scene with photometric area lights. i played around for one hour until i realised that area lights don't seem to be able to cast area shadows, that's ridiculous! with area-lights all area shadow parameters like sample-spread and jitter amount don't have any effect on the shadows. i also tried it with advanced raytraced shadow but they have the same limitation.

 

so do i have to use point lights to get smooth area-shadows?!

 

area-lights seem a bit senseless to me this way!

[Paulo Kiefe]

i realised that area lights don't seem to be able to cast area shadows, that's ridiculous!

 

area-lights seem a bit senseless to me this way!

 

I am very confident that the area light can cast soft and hard shadows. Depending on the size of the area light you have.

 

What size did you set in the Areal light Parameters rollout?

 

Rembember that the Area Light Sampling rollout does not affect the softness of the shadow... i affects the quality of the shadow.

 

Also remember that you have to use the Area Shadows type and don't forget to tag the On setting.

[oluv]

here the comparison of a point light and an area light with exactly the same settings for area shadows... regardless of which settings i choose for jitter, it doesn't change anything when used in combinatinon with area-lights.

[Paulo Kiefe]

Jitter is not the setting you should change if you want to have soft shadows. The size of the area light under the are light parameters rollout is what you have to change.

[oluv]

they have both the same size and the same settings, so why is the area-light shadow looking that bad? i can only increase shadow quality and shadow integrity to get more "steps" into the penumbra, but with area-lights the area-shadow never gets really soft.

 

either this is some kind of limitation of max or a bug.

[J.R.]

it works perfectly for me. used photometric light -> target area -> shadows -> area shadows; default render. change size of the area light in area light parameters. maybe you post some more of your settings.

[oluv]

it works perfectly for me. used photometric light -> target area -> shadows -> area shadows; default render. change size of the area light in area light parameters. maybe you post some more of your settings.

 

tried it again, doesn't work. max7 with sp1.

 

which version of max are you running?

[J.R.]

i am running the same version max 7 with SP1. here is another screenshot with my settings. i just changed the shadow type, the area light parameters and the intensity multiplier, everything else is default.

[oluv]

thanks for your screenshot.

 

i found the error, it seems to be a bug in max.

 

i normally use exposure-control, especially in combination with radiosity. and area-shadows from area-lights plus exposure control don't seem to work right, i attached an example.

 

the funny thing is that it works perfect with point-lights, doesn't matter if i use exposure control or not. so it must be some bug.

 

can you try this out please?

[J.R.]

i tried, with radiosity, linear exposure everything works fine. maybe you post you scenefile... the bug must be something else...