No shadow adjustments for photometric lights in 4.9 beta
kyoto kid
Posts: 40,617
...I've been runnign the 4.9.166 beta alongside 4.8 for a while and notice it has no adjustment sliders for shadow attributes whne using photometric lights as there is in 4.8. Is this just an unfortunate omission in the Beta, caused by some sort of glitch in the install, or a permanent change to the programme?
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Comments
The shadow adjustments don't apply in Iray photoreal mode so they're hidden.
...so you can no longer soften shadows or change their colour/intensity? How does one go about getting a soft box effect without using emissive lights which slow the render process down?
In 4.8 when set to render in Iray the shadow contols still show in the parameters.
Do you have "Show Hidden Parameters" on in 4.8 and off in 4.9?
...not that I know of. Just a bit dismayed as in studio proofs I have been doing in 4.9, I no longer see a soft shadow cast by the main spotlight whereas I did in 4.8 evne though I am using the exact same light setup with the same settings..
If you have ground turned on try turning the shadow intensity down. Another thing to try is to turn the Crush Blacks down low which sets the black point to more of a grey.
...Shadow Intensity is one of the controls that does not show in 4.9. My main need of shadow softness is as I mentioned, to create a soft box effect without resorting to render killing emissive lights as I am stuck rendering in CPU mode until I can scrape up the 1,000$ for a memory upgrade my system needs, an OEM of W7 Pro, and a 1080 Ti.
Unfortunately having to find a new place to live at the moment pretty much puts all that on hold.
The Ground Shadow Intensity is at the bottom of Render Settings/Editor/Environment. I have CPU only too, an i5 on a Window 7 laptop, Intel 4000 integrated graphics and 16 GB of ram, and it doesn't stop me :)
...does that work on other surfaces used as the ground plane (like a floor or ground cover that is part of a set)?
I don't work much with HDRIs because I feel I am "flying blind" unless I waste a tonne of time doing test renders or switch to Iray view mode. Doing the latter is real real slow going when making camera moves or rotating the sphere and after a bit the programme usually crashes.
I use HDRI about as much as I do structures and landscapes :) I have the AUX Viewport set for Iray and have it docked at the side of the main window. It is usually open but if I get too much lag when moving about the scene I just hide it until I finish and then open it to see the result :) I think you are right about the Ground Shadow though, it doesn't affect the shadow on objects in the scene but I think it works on any floor added, I've never actually bothered looking too close :)
You can also get a softbox effect by adding geometry to the photometric spotlights. They default to point but can br changed to rectangular, disc, etc then have dimensions applied. They will act exactly like a photostudio softbox
Iray has never had a softness setting - what you can do is, if the light is in Photometric mode (which is the default), is assign shape to it to give it size and so soften the shadows.
..so the "size" of the light contols the softness then just like by creating large emisive lights? Didn't know that (still working partially from a 3DL perspective).
Yes. In 3delight the shadow softness just blurs the edge of the projected shadow but it doesn't soften the terminator - the line between lit and unlit on a curved surface that only partly fades the light - while in Iray you need a real area light, either from giving the source a shape or from using an emissive surface, and that softens both the edge of cast shadows and the terminator on curved surfaces.
...so a photometric distant light would work then. As I am rendering in CPU mode, I am trying to minimise the use of emissive lights as much as possible even though they are more "convenient".
Really need to upgrade my system's memory and get a 1080 Ti.
No, distant lights don't have a shape setting - only spots and points. If you want softshadows from a distant light you need to use an HDRI, or use a spot and pull it way back (but then you'd need it to have a huge area to get any noticeable softening - the softness is due to the divergence between a line drawn from opposite edges of the source through the edge of the shadow-casting object.
...for daytime outdoor scenes I use the Sun/Sky option. The downside of this is I'm always stuck with a clear blue sky as skydomes block the sun (or for that fact, a photometric distant light) in Iray. In the right situations I can get away using a straight photo backdrop (a plane primitive with a photo image attached) but that doesn't always work especially if items in the scene end up casting shadows on it (as there is no way to turn off shadow casting in Iray photoreal mode like there is in 3DL). What we need is something like volumetric clouds to go along with the Sun/Sky setting but we still don't have true volumetrics in Iray. Yes, there is Stonemason's Iray Clouds, but they are photographic billboards with lighting and shadows "burned in" and don't represent the wide variety of different sky conditions which occur.
As I mention, I don't use HDRIs because they are a real pain to position without being able to use Iray View mode which crashes the programme on my system. Another reason I'm not very enamoured with them is they are also "stock" backgrounds which are most often shot in non urban locations. A good deal of my outdoor illustration work is set in cities and towns rather than out in the country, a forest, on a remote highway, at a beach, etc.
Why not turn Darw Dome off and save as PNG or Tiff, then drop a sky photo behind the render?
...the ambient effect of the dome doesn't come into play then (which changes how reflective surfaces look). Also it is simpler to match the sun angle to that of the photo when the backdrop can be seen in the viewport workspace (like in the scene of the girls ot the bus stop).
I wonder if I can create volumetric clouds in Carrara or Bryce and import them as objs.
You could always render a mask separately, or as a canvas, and then use that to clip the render over a chosen sky image.