Shadow Maps?

[Ikari]

dunno how's called in the english version i've got the german. there are 3 types of shadows in c4d: the hard, the soft, and the third one in the drop down menu for choosing the kind of shadow. the third one (flächenschatten - maybe on english its called "areal shadow" or smthng like that?") takes about several minutes for just one shadow to do. so i recommend to take the "soft shadow"

[flingster]

sorry i didn't mean shadow types i meant - shadow map.

see pic hopefully you'll be able to see light setting from this....sorry for any confusion.

shadow map settings....
:shrug:

[Ikari]

i know you ment the map but thought that a setting of 250*250 shouldnt take too long on rendering cause its a low setting and the default. so i thought maybe you took that shadow type.

first of all i would reduce the density to 70 - 80% cause 100% arent realistic, but that just by the way.

maybe the two shadows overlay eacht other and c4d gets problems to render this.

err i see you took soft shadows (my brain is kinda tired *gg*)

otherwise try to reduce the map-size or take off one shadow - every other cause for big shadow-calculating time should be a problem which doesnt depend on your scene.

[flingster]

the thing is i used dicloner so i had loads of objects...so you might be right on the cinema having problems working two shadows out....first works out from one...then the other...it was on the second one where it was having problems....i didn't touch the default settings...but usually on the render part you notice at bottom left calculating shadow map message...on the second one it just took an absolute age from usual...no fancy lighting really...just two soft shadows?

btw thanks for the tip on density...i'll try and remember that one.
:thumbsup:

[kiwi]

Could be because they are overlapping you get some of that mirror against mirror reflection thing happening,if you know what I mean....cant think of its accurate name sorry :)



Stu.

[LucentDreams]

could be a few things, what was the SLA material out of curiosity.

First of all look at your shadow depth, if you have refractive or refelective objesct and a high shadow depth renders wil get longer and longer, as well even if the lights are exact duplicats, if one is simply casting a shadow of a perfect sphere on a plane and the other is dealing with 10 transparent characters and such on a bumpy surface, rendertimes for the latter are going to be substantially longer.

[flingster]

kiwi: you could be right...problem was i was messing about with reflectivity on and off...so may also have slowed it down.

Kaiskai: nothing special on sla front...fusion in colour, luminace-fresnel, bump on/off depended, did have transparency on at once stage which really killed it...much like reflection....no bump...but did have specular n spec colour....

it was kinda hard to pin down really as i was doing a lot of messing and it just seemed to really slow me down...i suspect as you guys hinted at...reflection and transparency both have a big effect...

thanks for the high shadow depth tip.

i was kinda curious as people use of shadow maps size...but i suppose i learnt alot about how different settings can affect your render times alot....problem with me is i tend to mess low first...then really crank up the settings for the perfect render hopefully...like perfection...but its so damn ellusive.

thanks again guys appreciate your thoughts as always.:beer:

[LucentDreams]

I use 100 a lot, for really subtle effects, I mean a lot or rooms and such the ambient lighting makes shadows so subtle nd soft, its the most effective way, Otherwise I like using 750 for its sharper harder look. I think I"m going to experiment more with the shadow shader that was posted ages ago whne I have some free time (in say five or ten years)

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