topic Re: Rendering Ground Plane Shadows in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

Rendering Ground Plane Shadows

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Mar 2018 00:41:16 GMT

I am trying to render and object and want a shadow to show in the render.

When I go to the render tab, the shadow shows (see attached screenshot). However, when I start an in-screen render or do a local render, the shadows disappear (See attached screenshot). I have 'Ground Plane' turned on in my Scene Settings (see attached screenshot).

Why isn't the shadow showing up when I try to do a render?

Re: Rendering Ground Plane Shadows

robduarte — Tue, 13 Mar 2018 15:09:51 GMT

Have you tried another Environment? It could be that the one you've selected washes out the shadows when the longer, more complete, render takes the lighting into account. You might also check the Position setting in the dialog box you posted - if the position is too high, I believe it will be cutting off the ground (and the bottom of your model).

Re: Rendering Ground Plane Shadows

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Mar 2018 15:16:41 GMT

Yes, I tried multiple environments, multiple camera angles, and let the renderer run for a large number of iterations (500+) and the shadows didn't show. As soon as I start to an in-canvas or full render, the shadows disappear.

I'm pretty confident this is a bug.

Re: Rendering Ground Plane Shadows

robduarte — Tue, 13 Mar 2018 15:29:12 GMT

Can you post the two different images you get? Have you tried a cloud render?

Re: Rendering Ground Plane Shadows

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Mar 2018 17:41:17 GMT

My original post includes two images - the one with the shadow that shows up when I go to the render tab and the one without the shadow when I try to do the in-canvas render. When I try to do a full render, the shadow is removed as well.

I've included two more sets of images. One set using another environment and one using a different object. In all cases, the shadow disappears when I try to render.

Unless there is some render setting I'm missing, this definitely looks like a bug. It'd be great if others/Autodesk QA could confirm that it's happening and if so, would be great if Autodesk could fix this. Thank you.

Re: Rendering Ground Plane Shadows

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Mar 2018 17:42:03 GMT

Here's the second set of images using a different model where the same issue is occurring.

Re: Rendering Ground Plane Shadows

dewaine50 — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 06:03:57 GMT

I too would like to know. It's been a while and I still haven't figured out how shadows just refuse to render. You see it in the preview but when you render using the teapot button it just doesn't appear. really inconsistent expectations

Re: Rendering Ground Plane Shadows

TrippyLighting — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 14:34:58 GMT

We'd really need to have access t the .f3d file to be able to assess this.

In general, the preview uses a "canned" form of lighting, which produces the shadow.

When rendering it uses an HDRI as the light source and material settings. Depending on those there might not be a shadow. An HDRI with a distant light source, such as the sun will likely produce a shadow on a more diffuse reflecting ground plane.