Many thanks Arjo, >I attached a little scene with an AO shader
I havent tried the zip for the AO as yet but the description brought to light something I had missed ... but that test failed. Will get to the zip next, but thinking that my scaling of the project scene is ridiculous and might be getting in the way. >Just tick camera invisible I was certain I had tested that!!! But obviously I had missed it. Old age here!! And the soft shadows ... the Special light has done the trick very well with the shadows fading from more defined to more blurred with distance very well indeed. All very helpfull and thanks again!! Neil ----- Original Message ----- From: Arjo Rozendaal To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2009 7:20 PM Subject: RE: AO, Shadows Only and Hi Neil, I attached a little scene with an AO shader. But I should also explain how I use it. First I render a regular image with normal shaders and light without AO. Then I delete all the materials from this scene and drop in the AO shader. I render a second version with this scene. In photoshop I put the AO version on top of the normal render with mode multiply. This procedure is much faster than rendering everything in one pass. And you've got much more control on where and how heavy you want the effect to show up. To render only shadows you don't need special shaders. Just tick camera invisible in the general tab of the properties window. To create soft shadows, there are two ways. 1. Completely soft: use the mapped shadows option. The size of the light and the resolution control the softness. The larger the light the softer the shadow. Increasing the shadow map resolution will make it sharper. But mapped shadows have some nasty side effects. Such as small objects far from the light source won't create shadows. These shadows are so small that they don't fit in the resolution of the shadow map. 2. Real raytraced soft shadows: Leave the shadow settings at Ray traced shadows. Increase the size of the light source (the larger the softer). Increase the quality to as high as you need. This gives you shadows that are sharp near the object and get softer further away. Hope this helps a bit. Arjo. Van: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Namens Neil Cooke Verzonden: donderdag 10 september 2009 6:48 Aan: [email protected] Onderwerp: AO, Shadows Only and Hi RS UserList Good Guys, Questions for today ... 1. I cant get the Ambient Occlusion material to work ... use the same settings on the file from December 2007 as far as I can tell but nothing happening. Any hints appreciated. 2. What is the shader that will allow me to get shadows only rendering in raytrace? I have an object and I want its shadows only so that I can bake them onto a colour map of just the terrain .... any chance? 3. How do I make shadows blur ... is this a GI function? I have yet to go back to the Manual on this one and the GI section seems well documented. I had thought that "Light Quality" or "Size" in the menu bar for point lights could sort it out but havent had any luck so far ... however, if this is the best system then I will go back to it. Many thanks Neil Cooke ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.409 / Virus Database: 270.13.88/2358 - Release Date: 09/09/09 21:36:00
