CGTalk - shadow method issue

Jay1

12-06-2009, 10:53 AM

Hello!
I've made a scene containing some fluids and want to render them with shadows, so i turned on segments in the render globals. Everthing worked fine and my fluids were renderd with shadows. I worked on the rest of the scene and somewhat later i wanted to render it again but now MR doesn't render the fluids with shadows, when the shadow method is set to segments. Instead it renders no shadows like when its set to simple. The weird thing is that when i switch the shadow method to simple MR now renders the fluids with shadows like when the shadow method is set to segments. Its like maya has switched the naming of the shadow methods. How is that possible? I restarted Maya several times and also tried it with a new scene, no change!
I am using Maya2009 on a Mac OSX 10.4

Jay1

12-12-2009, 11:33 PM

any ideas?

Wick3dParticle

12-13-2009, 04:04 PM

Hey Jay,

Here are a few ideas:

1. Delete prefs folder.
2. make sure your video card's drivers are up to date.
3. Try the scene on another machine.
4. Import your fluid only in to a new scene.

Your problem sounds pretty vague, so its a bit difficult to give you more specific help.

Hope one of these suggestions helps,

~Ilan

YourDaftPunk

12-13-2009, 04:19 PM

Just as a test, hide all your lights and render with one spotlight, raytraced shadows on. Do not use a directional light. Make sure shadow opacity and transparency in your fluid container are opaque and tell me what you get.
-shawn

Jay1

12-17-2009, 05:42 PM

ok, i tried it with a new scene containing only a 3d fluidcontainer with emitter and a spotlight. i turned on raytracing in the settings from the spotlight and rendered it out 2 times, first with segments and then with the simple method. Now i can't see any change between the two methods, it doesn't matter if i turn on segments or leave the settings to simple. With both settings the fluid is rendered with shadows. Even turning on/off self shadowing in the fluids settings makes no difference. Only turning off raytracing on the spotlight will cause a different result. :banghead:

YourDaftPunk

12-17-2009, 08:45 PM

Some versions of Maya have a bug where a directional light won't produce a shadow on a fluid container forcing you to use a spotlight.

Jay1

12-19-2009, 02:46 PM

ok but i used a spotlight in this scene.

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12-19-2009, 02:46 PM

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