Shadowless shadow maps
ewangrant1
Posts: 0
Here we go again. New scene I'm working on, got round to placing a couple of lights, turned Deep Shadow Map on on both and tested. Render process informs me it is creating shadow maps so imagine my surprise when there is not a single shadow in the scene. Both characters are lit as expected from the two lights. Checked various items were set to cast shadows, everything looks as expected except render result.
Now the only other thing I did was firstly I loaded an uber enviroment, however it wasn't working as expected and I did not know how to achieve the desired result so it was deleted. Scene contents list no other light source nor headlamp blocker. So as usual, and not surprisingly, I am stumped.
In other news, delighted with results using Win7 Pro. Not had a single crash and have waited over an hour for shadow maps to be created in some scenes before rendering begins, this would have been impossible with 32 bit Vista. Have monitered memory usage and even on a scene that took 25 hours to complete there was always around 2.5 Gb mimimum still available.
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Comments
What type of light were they?
I think you need to add a UberSurface 2 to the scene. See this post for an explanation: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/88145/
Or you can use a ground from may environment props too. I had a similar issue: I was wondering where the ray-traced shadows and image were when I rendered the scene.
UberEnvironment uses light from the HDR / Tif; it does not load the image as a background.
Sorry I couldn't help more but I don't know much about using HDRI in Daz Studio.
edit: I forgot some stuff as usual.
Slight off question. Looking at Windows 7 Pro 64bit here as well, How much RAM is in that Win7 computer of yours?
Just a slight frustration with the Universe at the moment, as I watch prices for Ram/SSD/Win7 combinations skyrocket the past week. I may not be ably to swing 16GB (2x8GB) Ram with the other two needs (SSD&Win7;) , and may be forced to go with a 8GB (2x4GB) Ram kit.
Only hours and counting now, till I can click the "Buy Now" buttons, lol.
@ Richard. A distant and a spot, nothing special about either.
@Starion. I'll give that a read, thanks for the link.
@Zarcon. Only 8 Gb, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
Ok, read through that link and whilst interesting and useful (I've bookmarked it for later) it really doesn't apply as I am not trying to use HDR lighting.
What I speculate happened. - When I loaded the UE2 sphere, some overall scene switch/setting got tuned on (or off). Upon later deleting said sphere the setting/switch wasn't altered back.
Shadows should work even with an active environment light - it's pretty standard to include a directional light for shadows when using an environment light. Are you sure you had deleted the UE light, not just its sphere (a bright light might wash out the shadows)?
Double-checked all the info previously given. No errors.
What are your shadow settings, and what are the settings on your point light (and where is it)? Edit: assuming it is a point light and not a linear pointlight - if it's the latter, and is on the viewer's side of the figure, it could well be flooding the scene with light if there's no falloff. Note that Depth mapped Shadows don't work for point lights - for those it has to be ray-traced shadows or nothing.
It was a LPL, its fall-off was set to 1,000 - however intensity was only 36% so I don't believe it was washing out shadows, indeed the floor was largely dark.
In any event, in the end I deleted both lights and started with new lights. Shadows are working fine now. One of those mysteries that will never be solved now.
Periodically renders are produced where the figure has pink and blue mini cubes scattered around the body, occassionally two thirds of the figures whole body is covered in a shimmering pink oversuit - slightly oversize in that you can see a border. Render again and it may be worse or gone altogether. I'll post an example next time I get one.
As Richard says, point lights (including LPLs) do not cast shadows when DSM is set - sadly there is no informative message telling you this! - only giving shadows when ray trace is set. The pink and blue artefacts you see with DSMs is a known issue with 3Delight and DSMs. As you have found it is random and a re-render may clear them or changing point of view a little or ... ;) Ray-traced shadows do not suffer from this.
Ah, thanks, re the known issue with DSM's. Bit of a pain if you find them in a 6hr plus render. That said, I've yet to produce a 6hr plus render that was worth the wait so I could probably tone down the settings till I'm a little more accomplished. :)