weird hair issue

[Neil V]

If I had to guess I would say that maybe your shadow map size is too small. Is it set to 250x250? What are your settings for your light and shadows? Also, what are your render settings?

[imashination]

It looks like he's walking through a soft shadow map. Either:

- Increase the shadow map res
- restrict the shadow light to a spot
- move the light with the character
- dont use soft shadows

[realsurreal]

thanks I really appreciate it, i'll try these and see what i come up with

[realsurreal]

switching from omni to spotlight fixed it im pretty sure i won't know until i render it out again but thanks for you help and is this a common problem with softshadows?

[ngrava]

Yep. Shadow Maps are an old and antiquated technology. You need to pay attention to the resolution of the image that's generated or you'll often get bad results.

[realsurreal]

thanks ngrava Im just really getting deep into hair so i've got along ways to go and i appreciate the tip. So I would assume it's probably better to work with raytraced shadows then, whats the advantage and disadvantage. I would assume render times are longer. Will raytraced shadows if setup correctly produce a better results than soft shadows?

[Neil V]

I'd definitely avoid raytraced shadow unless you're going for a more technical look to your animation. What you're after is Area Shadows which create the greatest sense of realism. Sadly, the render times can be enormous. If you have the spare render time and you want a quality finish go for Area Shadows.

thanks ngrava Im just really getting deep into hair so i've got along ways to go and i appreciate the tip. So I would assume it's probably better to work with raytraced shadows then, whats the advantage and disadvantage. I would assume render times are longer. Will raytraced shadows if setup correctly produce a better results than soft shadows?

[realsurreal]

Thanks Neil I guess somehow i was under the impression area shadows did not work with hair I'll look into it for sure. Sorry for such noob questions but you guys have now idea how much your tips mean for are small studio.

[Neil V]

No problem at all. Area shadows give a lovely realistic effect to hair. When you increase your hair count to something like 200000 it can have a hugely expensive render time penalty though so beware.

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