Iray Deeper Shadows?

FilthyAppetite

Is there a way to adjust iray to make deeper shadows with just IBL light?

Seems I cant get just the right amount of shadow with using just IBL(HDRI)..

this is for an outdoor scene, and using distant light, does create enough of a show, it just seems to add a hint to much light, and I cant get it lined up just right with the ibl soft shadow.. thanks for any help..

Rafmer

You could try the shadows intensity at the bottom of the environment settings.

FilthyAppetite

i think thats for fake ground? I have a ground object... 

But I tried anyways, and it didnt work :(

Fishtales

Try using the Crush Black and Burn Highlights sliders at the bottom of Tone Mapping.

FilthyAppetite

I'll try that, ive only played with that setting once and it turned a 1hr render into a 4+.. so i havent played with it since.

Tobor

If you have Photoshop or another graphic editor that can output 32-bit TIFs, you can use it to increase the dynamic range of the main hightlight, which will make the light brighter, and therefore deepen the shadow it casts. Work on a copy of your HDR image. If the scene has a visible sun, try making it brighter by painting over lighter and lighter shades of white. Make a change and test it. It's easy to go overboard. There is no one way to accomplish this task, so you'll need to experiment. For example, if the scene is already overly light, you may find it necessary to bring down the curves in order to achieve a higher range for the main light source.

 

Fishtales

Another way that might work is to increase the Environment intensity and then reset the Tone Mapping settings for the extra light.

FilthyAppetite

some odd reason it's not letting me save a partial render now... so I cant post it to show whats going on... 

another thing that aggervates me is, sometimes I either upon saving the file or something else, it will no longer let me adjust the resolution.. and I have made sure both unlocks were on in the resolution and aspect ratio boxes :/

FilthyAppetite

I let this one render over night, to show what I'm seeing.. 

Scene lightning currently from IBL and Distant light.

Noticing some weird reflections after messing with with the environment and tone mapping in the water.

Still trying to get the shadows to show up, even tried some speed lights, but they actually didnt do anything.. 

Fishtales

Just a thought, do you have draw ground on or off?

FilthyAppetite

draw ground has been on, i will toggle it off and check the results... 

 

Toyen

The "Crush Blacks" slider in the tone mapping section usually does the job for me! : )

Fishtales

Lokking closely at your image the light seems to be coming straight down, as at noon, but there is very little intensity. With the sun where it is I would expect the shadows to stretch out towards the camera. Where in the image is your distant light? It should be set to shine from where the sun is for it to cast the correct shadows.

FilthyAppetite

no change with ground off..

FilthyAppetite

Well, I got to a point with the tone mapping, to match the brightness of the distant light and the IBL, but most everything in the scene was washed out... :/ 

I may have to try a bunch of point lights next :/

Tobor

The image simple lacks dynamic range. You will not get much shadow variation from it unless you edit it. It's a lot simpler, not to mention predictable, if you do that rather than try to correct for it with tone mapping.

A distant light could produce more noticeable shadows if it's set up properly. From your image there's no indication a distant light is active.

FilthyAppetite

the distant light is the one putting the sunlight glaze on the water surface...

I'm all ears if you can describe how you might fix the scene :)

FilthyAppetite

Sun-Sky, actually solved my lighting problem.. however, as I am using an HDR Envrionment map to also get relections of a background, and clouds ofcourse.. it kind of creates more problems lol.. 

Arghh..

Szark

As you found you either use HDRI or Sun/Sky but not together and what you are finding with the HDRI is that it isn't a very good HDRI in terms of not giving good realistic directional shadows. It is about quality with HDRIs.

Tobor

FilthyAppetite said:

the distant light is the one putting the sunlight glaze on the water surface...

I'm all ears if you can describe how you might fix the scene :)

I already did for the HDRi; see my first post in this thread.

In a nutshell, you need to boost the dnamic range of your image. First make sure you are using a 32-bit TIF, HDR, or EXR. If it's not 32-bit, or it's just not well made (lots of these aren't)(, you might find something else and solve your problem that way. But since this one is pretty cool from an image standpoint, you can consider looking into increasing its range as a way to provide the highight detail to produce stronger shadows. This is done in Photoshop, GIMP, etc. I gave a short recap, and you can find an endless number of how-tos on the Web.

 

FilthyAppetite

thanks.. I am still working on it and one improvement makes another headache.. heh..

And tobor, sorry ..I do admit I didnt try that yet, and I will do that next..

 

FilthyAppetite

well, all the trying to fix the current lighting has helped figure out where the actual shadows were coming from, so I made my distant light there... unfortunatley I'm losing my cool sun glare I made by mistake.. tried recreating it, but it was a happy accident :/

anyways, thanks for the help.. the scene isnt done, but I'm gonna render one out tonite and post the update in the morning..

thanks again.

Tobor

Is there anything that's keeping you from using a second distant light, one for the water effects, and another positioned and adjusted to provide for stronger shadows?

 

FilthyAppetite

Yea, one thing now.. lol.. 

So I used your method, and although I could not get the shadows to appear longer and deeper, they were more pronounced so I could painstakingly add a distant light to map over them,.. it turned out that the one I was using for the water glaze effect was totally in the wrong position ofcourse..

I cant seem to get another one to do that effect, I dont know why... sheer luck in placing the first one to get the right highlights from the water surface or whatever, but trying for quite awhile last night and tons of test renders I couldnt get it to work again.. and sadly with my current HDRI image, I cant adjust it to that position because of the ground height in it... 

I maybe able to use another HDRI for a different scene setup, so I will be reusing main terrian setup props again, light etc, to get that glaze effect, but it just doesnt work with what I've already done, so I'm setting it to the side for now :( 

Anyways, here it is now, and it's still a WIP, not final by far .. I plan on loading it up to being a fully packed beach scene.

Or so I thought, I'm getting a weired forum thing now where I upload an image but it's not found.. I'll try again later if it doesnt magically pop up sometime.

 

Chohole

If at first you don't succeed, try try try again.  

FilthyAppetite

Ohh I tried again, and it worked :)

Also, before anyone says it... I have noticed that there isnt a real difference in the waves, they kind of blend together.. there are actually 3 out front .. and I will try to do something about that :)