Soft shadows with omni

[LSphotog]

Hi,

How do I create soft shadows with omni light?

TIA
LSphotog

[Fluffy]

Only IES lights support soft shadows at the moment.

[LSphotog]

Many thanks,

What does the shadow bias and shadow radius control?


LSphotog

[vlado]

Actually, if you set the shadow radius > 0.0, you will get a soft shadow from the omni light.

The shadow bias moves the shadow a little bit along the surface normal; this helps to avoid polygonal artifacts on curved low-poly objects. It should not be too big or you will get wrong shadows though.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Fluffy]

Actually, if you set the shadow radius > 0.0, you will get a soft shadow from the omni light.

One precision : not "soft shadows", but area shadows (using the C4D term). Shadow maps are different and are calculated much faster than area shadows. They do not rely on samples either, but on shadow map size only.

[LSphotog]

Many thanks Vlado and Fluffy

regards
LSphotog

[vlado]

One precision : not "soft shadows", but area shadows (using the C4D term). Shadow maps are different and are calculated much faster than area shadows. They do not rely on samples either, but on shadow map size only.Of course, but in that case V-Ray IES lights also do "area" (and not "soft") shadows. Currently none of the lights rendered by V-Ray uses shadow maps.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Fluffy]

Right. One question, though : how come ies soft shadows seem to render much faster than regular omni lights at equal quality (visually) and size?

[vlado]

The IES lights take the light dimensions from the IES profile itself, while the omni light always assumes a sphere... maybe that's the difference.

Best regards,
Vlado