Directional light with soft shadows in raytracing

[rikkarlo]

Dear all, 

is it possible to have a directional light with soft shadows in raytracing?

In other software packages such as corona renderer or blender, there is an option in the directional light called "angle" or "sun size" which softens the shadows in a "physically plausible way". In Vred at the moment I can't find any similar feature, so I usually use an HDR with an overcast day, or a spherical light placed very far away from the scene, but both solutions have their limits.

Riccardo

[richardlevene]

I have mentioned and requested this before. Would like this option as well. I think at the time it was said that because it could not be supported in opengl they would not implement it. Not sure if that is still the case but would still like it even if it just has a note saying (in raytrace only).

[rikkarlo]

Thanks for the fast answer, I doubt that they are not implementing it just because in open GL would not work, a lot of other features works only in raytracing and not in openGL and vice versa, the shadow map filter radius for example works only in open GL, let's hope they implement it because it would be useful in a lot of cases.

[richardlevene]

Yeah who knows. 2017 was my last known support request about that topic.

[cikho]

have you tried using the skylight environment with very very very high environment size value? (not the scale, the size slider)

[rikkarlo]

Yes I did try it, but it is a workaround that has its limit, for example, the sun direction can't be angled as easily as the directional light and you can't use another environment at the same time. 
So yeah, it's a solution but it's not the best solution in my opinion, but thanks for your replay! :).