How do you control Shadow intensity in IRAY?

nokoteb99

If you use the defautl environment Dome+Scene, no matter what Ground Shadow Intensity you have it on, the shadow is still very light.

If you use environment Scene Only, the shadows are pitch black and you can't lower the intensity at all.

Anyone know?

XoechZ

Iray treats light like in the real world. That means the only way to control shadows is the light source itself. There are no "fake" shadow controls like in 3DL.

To get softer shadows, try to make the light source bigger. To get less intense shadows, try to lower the light intensity.

nokoteb99

But i'm using a Distant Light and i tried changing its Scale and had no effect. The shadows are still pitch black

nokoteb99

XoechZ said:

Iray treats light like in the real world. That means the only way to control shadows is the light source itself. There are no "fake" shadow controls like in 3DL.

To get softer shadows, try to make the light source bigger. To get less intense shadows, try to lower the light intensity.

I lowere light intensity, that only darkened the scene but the shadows are still pitch black

prixat

Are you using the "built-in" ground in the render settings?

There's a long standing problem with that and any added lights. Only the light from the HDR can produce soft shadows!

Though I thought the latest release notes said it was fixed in 4.9.3, but I may have mis-read that?

Fishtales

Try setting Crush Blacks in Tone Mapping to a lower number and raise the Burn Highlights until you get the shadows lighter.

Richard Haseltine

A distant light casts parallel rays of light, so the only light that gets into shadows will be bounced off the oter bits of the environment (if any). HDRIs produce light shadows most of the time because, in genral, there's light coming from all diections; distant lights produce dark shadows because, mostly, the light is coming from just one direction. A local light with area will give soft shadows, depending on its size and position relative to the item casting the shadow; having items in the scene to bounce light around will help to fill shadows; using a mix of distant light and HDRI then varying the environment inensity may help to get distinct but not solid shadows across the scene.

nokoteb99

XoechZ said:

Iray treats light like in the real world. That means the only way to control shadows is the light source itself. There are no "fake" shadow controls like in 3DL.

To get softer shadows, try to make the light source bigger. To get less intense shadows, try to lower the light intensity.

I lowere light intensity, that only darkened the scene but the shadows are still pitch black

nokoteb99

In Environment "Scene Only" mode. I just can't get the shadows to get lighter. This is what i get always. pure black.

The only time I can get it lighter is if i put another distant light facing another way but then that creates another shadow and i just want one shadow like in real life in a sunny day, i mostly see one shadow.(which is not pitch black, it just darkens the surface, floor or whatever)

 

 

nokoteb99

Fishtales said:

Try setting Crush Blacks in Tone Mapping to a lower number and raise the Burn Highlights until you get the shadows lighter.

didn't work. shadow still pitch black

nokoteb99

Look here my experiment. 2 Distant Lights. one pointing 90 degrees from the other. Great that it lowered the blacknesss BUT now i have a second shadow PLUS my character is lighten more which i don't want. Seems using Distant Lights doesn't work with IRAY. Should i use other type of light to mimic a Sun light? something where i can reduce the blackness of the shadows

 

 

nokoteb99

I'lll test out more stuff. I just don't get it why distant lights don't work.

B y the way, there is an Environment Setting "Ground Shadow Intensity" but it doesn't do anything. doesn't change anything. when i use the mode DOME+Scene and up the Ground shadow intensity(cause the shadows are light), i get no change.

prixat

In this situation I would leave it on Dome and Scene. Swap out the default HDR for a more neutral one that has no defined lightsource.

I often use Winter_Forest from the sIBL archive, for that reason:

http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/archive.html

 

nokoteb99

I'm having more luck with Sun And Sky mode. Still the Ground shadow intensity thing doesn't work but  Sun and Sky mode is cool plus you can set the time and day

fastbike1

Ground shadow intensity works for me.

 

 

nokoteb99

fast bike, not for me. it doesn't work at all. I use DAZ 4.9 for Windows 64bit version

sggk

nokoteb99 said:

fast bike, not for me. it doesn't work at all. I use DAZ 4.9 for Windows 64bit version

 

Take away all lights and use drome only.

Then experiment with date, time, longditude and latitude. You can also experiment with the drome orientation.