Shadow softness

Rendering
1

Hello!
Is there a way to adjust the shadow softness in R8? Which would be equivalent to a size parameter of the light source.

I have little experience with the Rhino renderer, because I use Enscape when I need it, but that thing is a troublemaker, and I’m looking for a short term alternative.

Thanks!

2

Hi @Eugen ,

Try a rectangular light. The size of it as well as the distance from the model will impact the softness along the shadow edge.

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3

In addition to the above some info:

For Raytraced and Rhino Render the Shadow Intensity on light primitives (pointlight, directional light, spotlight) changes under the hood the size of the primitive lights. Lower shadow intensity equals larger light primitives.

I’m not too happy with the current implementation, but that is how it is now.

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4

Ok, thanks, guys!

That’s quite peculiar. Any plans to change this?

5

Well, there’s no Shadow Intensity concept in Cycles directly (Used in Rhino Render and Raytraced), so this is a kludge. At this point no plans yet to change. I would prefer to remove this slider from the GUI when Rhino Render is active, to be honest.

6

Shadow intensity is rather fakey anyway, so I wouldn’t mind if you ditched this.

The soft shadow with rectangular light works. Do you think the other light sources can get a size, too?
The sun for example is not rectangular. Might be unnoticable when the shadow is soft enough, but this feels kind of workaroundish.

7

For sun softness instead add a directional light, and lower its shadow intensity. That will give you essentially a sun with soft shadows. I wrote about that in another post here: Blur the shadows - #2 by nathanletwory

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