Pixelstudio.nl

Hi there people.

We are some examples on how to get some nice shadows… hope you find this usefull.
Be carefull using area shadows cause render time are gonna go up

We are gonna start with a very simeple scene, here you can download it: Link

If you render this you’ll get :

No shadows have been applied here.
Now, i have my render settings high enough for this scene. so we can add shadows.
Turn on shadows and choose VrayShadows.

You can see we have shadows, but also you can see the shadows are very sharp!
So if you want soft edged shadows turn on the Area shadows.
Below are two example of area shadows (click for a bigger image).

First on is 20×20x20 next one is 50×50x50

Finally if you want less noise in your shadows turn the subdivs up. in the last example i used 100×100x100 with 32 subdivs. but beware: if you turn the subdivs higher your rendertime will increase (allot) so if you use lower values it renders quicker. if you use higher subdivs the rendertime will increase but also does quality.

A quick look at the vraysun:
You can get also some nice softshadows with this light. bit it works a bit different.

The shadows are a combination of the ZHeight of the Sun, and the Size mulitplier.
In my example of size multiplier is at 40. the noise is caused by having only 8 subdivs. so if you would set this to 32 you’ll get smoother shadows, but also higher rendertime.
Also i have my shadowbias at 0, this value moves the shadow toward or away from the shadow-casting object (or objects).

Okej, on specialrequest here are a few tip on how to get your GI shadows so that objects don’t fly in your scene.
look at the following image:

This isn’t a very clear example, but i’ll try to explain.
The two boxes from the right looks better then the one on the left. this is because of two things.
First, in reallife nothing has straight corners (except knives and such). so this mean all objects have rounded corners. thus has a different bounch of light. you can see the box most right has round corners. it’s also is on the floor.
The middel and left boxes have no rounded corners. but the middel looks better right…
This is cause that box is a very little but above the floor. this will give you better shadows there.

Next thing is cause all light you see in this image is GI light. so it means your GI sollution will have a very big impact on your quality. thus also on your shadows. if you decrase the Nrm and Clr threshold values of your IRmap you get better samples. test a couple of time and you will see.