PDA

View Full Version : mental ray skin hard shadow problem

berthunt
06-01-2006, 06:51 PM
Sometimes with Mental ray skin shader I get a un natural hard shadow. Is there a way to soften it or get it to render correctly?

When I switch out the skin shader for a gray standard max shader, the shadow looks softer and more natural. So it's definatly just a skin shader thing.

I've attached a .jpeg showing the problem
3DMadness
06-09-2006, 05:10 PM
I have seen this problem before but never find the solution, maybe it's related to the bump and scale. I don't know how to solve it, but I'll ask you to make a test: render it without bump and see if it still happens.
joana
06-09-2006, 07:01 PM
Maybe this could help? : http://www.lamrug.org/resources/skintips.html
berthunt
06-10-2006, 04:35 PM
I solved it - sort of. For starters, I discovered that the hard shadow was just on the unscattered top skin layer. But that info turned out to be irrelevant.

I had been using two large MR area spot lights on each side of the building my character is sitting in to simulate ambient sky light coming in through the windows. I changed it to be one light per window and the hard shadow went away. In it's place is a very natural shadow.
CGTalk Moderation
06-10-2006, 04:35 PM
This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.