Sharp Shadow

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone. I'm rendering a 3D car scene using a HDR and (DirectionalLight) to catch sun shadow with the shadow plane but for some reason under the car my shadow is too sharp as the image.

Is there a way to soft the shadow?

Vred Pro 2015 SR1-SP3.

Thanks! 😉

[seiferp · Accepted solution]

Hi buletvfx,

to me it looks like that there is a sun in your hdr already but probalbly not bright enough to cause shadow. You are using the directional light to get this effect on the ground plane. Am I´m right?

Right click on your environment in the material editor and select "Boost Light..." Play with the Boost and Treshold values to adjust the HDR to your needs.

Otherwise you should use one of the area lights ( Sphere, Disc or Rectangular) in Raytracing. Scale it to your needs and place it at the position the sun comes from.

Directional, Point and Spotlight are not really working correctly in Raytracing because they refer to one single point which is not existing in the real world. Lightsources like a sun, a bulb or a led light are always (more or less) self illuminating surfaces or objects. 

Cheers

Pascal

[Anonymous]

Hello Seiferp! 

Well, I did exactly what you said using a Spotlight in the light editor with the Area light enable and It's working like it should. Now my shadow is nicely soft and I'm pretty happy with the results.

Thank you so much for the help 😉