Objects not casting shadows?
Sparkie Shock
Posts: 96
Hey everyone. I have a question about lighting and shadows. I've been trying to light a room setup and I'm realising that none of the objects actually cast a shadow in the light I'm using. I would have though this would be all done automatically depending on light source etc. so long as the 'cast shadows' is enabled on the object in question .. which it is.
But I'm not seeing any shadows at all. So am I missing some kind of special shadow controller?
Would appreciate any help.
Thanks
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Is the light set to cast shadows? Objects do default to shadows on, but lights default to having the Shadow type set to None - you need to change this in the Parameters or Light pane. If you are using a solid room and distant lights, which shine from "outside", you will need to either set the walls themselves not to cast shadows or, if you don't want that (if, for example, you want a light patch from the window) you will need to use local lights - spots or point lights that shine from the location of the light - within the room.
I had a freebie from Adam Thwaite - the fly and that didn't cast any shadows. I think it was because it didn't have any geometry. IE an OBJ.
Maybe it was a poser prop?
Poser props are still OBJs - either called from the Geometries folder or embedded in the PP2 (you can copy the embedded geometry declaration from the PP2 and paste it into a new text file, change the extension to OBJ and it will work). Too high a Shadow Bias setting (on the order of the size of the item or over) or depth mapped shadows on a large scene can stop small objects from casting shadows.
Thanks for that, handy to know.
One problem could be the lighting used. So far you have not mentioned which type light set up you are using. In some setups the Ambient (or Fill) light is too high and that alone can washout all shadows. It would help to know the type of lighting used. And maybe a screen snap of the Scene tab showing the lights in the scene.
That sounds very technical and I wouldn't even know where to begin, but thanks for the info above on the light sources. I did try one turning on shadows but all it did was make the light source dark and still no shadows cast .. so perhaps i did it wrong. Are you supposed to have two light sources .. one to cast light and one to cast shadows?
Well last time I took a screen snap one of your moderators removed it :P .. (Despite it really showing nothing offensive at all!!!), anyways, suffice it to say it contains adult material so I can't post it ... but even so, just having a scene where a table or a piece of furniture should cast a shadow I'm not getting it. I guess I'm typically using spot lights .. don't even know how to get ambient light .. there's no button to press to insert anything called 'ambient' .. I just see Point, or Spot.
Point lights don't seem to do anything except cast very little amounts of light that interfere with any other light source .. so I avoid using them. I'm sure I'm using this all wrong :P
How do you even change the ambient lighting? There really should be a 'global' lighting control on the lighting tab.
Umm... 3DeLight lighting is all done by hand by the user or from presets. And I only asked for a Snap of the Scene Tab with the list not a Screen snap of your working image... Like this...That would at least show me which light your using.
I now know it is a Spotlight. Here are a few tips that might help
In your Viewport OR on your menu Bar you have a Menu that lets you pick which Camera you are looking through for your render or which View you are using. It looks like this... when open...
See the Spotlight in the List? If you pick it you will be looking through the light and see exactly where it is pointing.
I use that to set up lights to be sure they are aimed at what I want. It will also show if anything like a ceiling is in the way.
I hope that helps some.
Ahhh .. I see. Sorry you must forgive me .. I'm very new at this and despite making strides in areas posing the models I'm still a total novice when it comes to the computer techny language thing. It's very hard to make the connections sometimes .. but then when it's explained it all makes sense.
Here's a look at the scene tab and parameter settings. There's a lamp above my main 'objects' :P .. shining down but none of the objects are casting shadows .. and turning on the deep shadow map just makes the lamp light dim.
Okay that was weird .. I turned off Cast shadows on the rooms walls and floor and now I get my objects casting shadows. Kinda yippee ... but not really cos I don't understand why it's now working? How did turning off the cast shadows on the walls help? There are outside lights shining in but ... I kinda get it but I don't :P
What that probably means is that the lights were outside the room, so when you set them to cast shadows they couldn't get in at all (hence the light turning off). When you turned Cast Shadows off for the room the lights were able to reach the room. One useful trick is to select your light from the camera view list, at top right (where it will usually say Perspective View or the name of your camera) - with the light casting shadows you will then see what is going to block the light, which can be handy for making sure the light will go where you want.
One thing to note, although Deep Shadow Map is available as an option with point lights it won't work - you must use ray-traced shadows with point lights if you want shadows at all.
Ah Of course .. because the lamp light source was above the actual lamp that would make sense then why it turned dark .. the lamp object blocked it. I've since lowered it.
Thanks to everyone for comments and advice .. really am learning lots by doing this. Many thanks.
Note that this will also cause shadows on close objects like the edges of clothes (e.g. edge of sleeve on wrist, neckline on throat/chest) to abruptly stop when the clothes mesh gets too close to the skin mesh of the figure wearing the clothes. It's a sneaky kind of glitch, took me quite a while to figure out what was happening and how to deal with it. I usually end up with a Shadow Bias reduced from 1.0 to 0.2 or 0.1 — but only if the camera view is close enough to see the dud shadow. If it isn't, you don't need to bother.
i do not have shadow options in my light parameters - where do i turn on that option?
If you are using Iray then all lights cast shadows. If you are not getting shadows in an Iray render with the Render Mode set to Photoreal (the default) then either there is nothing for the shadows to fall on or the scene is overlit washing out the shadows.
You have the new Iray renderer selected, which means all lights cast shadows — you can't turn them off. If you go into Render Settings and switch back to the old default of the 3Delight renderer, then go back to the light parameters, you'll see the familiar shadow settings.
i just want to render the preview
why don't i have the shadow settings everyone else has? you saw my screenshot - i don't have shadow options
The option is not available using Iray - use the button in Render Settings to switch to 3delight or one of the OpenGL modes and it will be enabled.
having reset to basic gl render, i still can't find shadow options in the parameters of whatever light i select
i just want ground shadows - can i get them without having a ground plane, like in Poser?
For a shadow catcher you can use pwCtach or create your own in the Shader Mixer for 3Delight, Iray is set up to give ground shadows by default. BasicGL isn't a good choice for shadows. Note that theer is no longer a top-level group for Shadows in the settings panes - it is now a child group of the Light settings.