webwimp Posted January 4, 2005 Share Posted January 4, 2005 Hi, I'm new to Viz. Most of the skills that I acquired are self taught. Most of the time, I finetune my work according to intuition so if I'm wrong, please let me know. My problem is the lack of shadow. I placed lots of freespot lights in a dome-shaped bubble around the object as experiment. Only one of these source are shadow enabled (i'm using shadow map). I tried making that particular light more intense but still the same. i'm using Viz 4 without any pluggins. thanks in advance! -Steff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted January 4, 2005 Share Posted January 4, 2005 If you want a crisper and darker shadow you need to use advanced shadows or raytraced shadows. These shadow types will increase your render time but will give you the look you need. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buffalo Bills Posted January 4, 2005 Share Posted January 4, 2005 Steff, Without seeing an image it is hard to decifer what is happening. But it might be that you have to adjust some settings on you shadow map parameters in order to see the shadow. By the programs default the shadow doesn't start up against an object. So you need to adjust some settings in order for that to happen. My suggestion is to go under the shadow map settings of that particular light and change the bias to read like .1 or .2 then to soften the shadow, change the map size so it is larger than 512. This will soften the shadow and reduce the amount of jaggies. Then with the sample range I usually use anywhere from 4-6. I hope this helps solve your shadow issues. Again without seeing an image it is kind of hard to solve the problem. Good Luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
webwimp Posted January 4, 2005 Author Share Posted January 4, 2005 hi guys, thanks for the super fast replies. here goes.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buffalo Bills Posted January 4, 2005 Share Posted January 4, 2005 Steff, What type of lights are you using? you might want to check the scale of your scene. That too might be affecting your lights. With all the lights you said you have in your scene, it seems dark. Let us know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ras Posted January 4, 2005 Share Posted January 4, 2005 Did you check the size of your hotspot? I remember learning Viz and not being able to figure out why my shadows weren´t there... Shadows are onlt cast within the hotspot... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Posted January 5, 2005 Share Posted January 5, 2005 Hi Steff, You may just need a point light set to Ambient only and then whatever lights you want for shadows. All those spots without shadows will certainly wash out the shadows from a single source. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LukeC Posted January 5, 2005 Share Posted January 5, 2005 Head over to http://www.skyraider3d.com and get the e-light maxscript. It is a script to generate a dome of spotlights like what your trying to do. The reason i suggest it is so you can have a look through the settings of these lights and work backwards to try and help fix your problem. Hope thats of some help to you cheers Luke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
webwimp Posted January 6, 2005 Author Share Posted January 6, 2005 hello, i think i have figured this out. i tested all the suggestions on a smaller scale as seen here. fran have highlighted an important point here - there's too much light so there's no shadow! the shadow light source here is daylight with 20000 intensity. but the shadow is still kinda light. i've switched the other lights to ambient only. shadow map size is set at 1600. tried using a -1 intensity omni to darken shadow but it turned out fake and hard to control. the reason why its kinda gloomy earlier in the first picture is because the brightness is set to 35 in log exposure ctrl. i think i learn a lot from just solving my problem. thanks again guys! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Posted January 6, 2005 Share Posted January 6, 2005 Hi Steff, When you have a light set to Ambient only, you don't need very many of them. Check out some of MontreeT's tutorials here: http://www.cgarchitect.com/resources/tutorials/default.asp Here is another good tutorial by Jeremy Birn of Pixar: http://3drender.com/light/3point.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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