Soften Shadows?

[bernhard]

3dsmax 2019
Vray Next update 1 (4.10.01.00001)
Topic: Soften Shadows

The Standard Target SpotLight has the options VrayShadows params.
With these options, I can chose Area Shadow and soften the shadow by increasing the UVW size.

a) Why are these features not available in a VrayLight (Plane)?
b) And what options do you have in the VrayLight to soften the shadows similar to the Standard Target SpotLight?
c) Is there any way to add the Area Shadow Feature to an Original VrayLight?

Thanks a lot & happy rendering!
cheers

[CityWrecker]

See this.....As IRL, the shadow is a function of light configuration. Photography or film lights don't have a soften shadow button, its a matter of use.

https://forums.chaosgroup.com/forum/...ess-of-shadows

[piotrus3333]

there are soft boxes though.
use SoftBoxTex in VRayLightPlane or something custom to have more control.

[bartel]

CityWrecker
That's technically true, of course, but something not existing in the real world is not in itself a good reason to not have it in 3D. Just with light ranges and similar stuff, any cheat is very much welcome.

[CityWrecker]

Fair enough. Would be nice in the real world too. Wish my lights did have a soften shadow button.

[kosso_olli]

CityWrecker
any cheat is very much welcome.

Not for me, sorry. I think in 2019 we should well be past any cheating in the field of 3D... There is physically accurate tech for lighting in V-Ray (aka V-Ray Plane Light). Anything that can be done in the real world can be achieved with a V-Ray plane light as well.
Regarding the standard max lights: I would not use them at all, because they are not physically plausible. It starts with the shadows, even in area mode, and ends with the fact that they do not care for a reflection component.

[^Lele^]

a) Why are these features not available in a VrayLight (Plane)?
b) And what options do you have in the VrayLight to soften the shadows similar to the Standard Target SpotLight?
c) Is there any way to add the Area Shadow Feature to an Original VrayLight?

a)The Are light of V-Ray shares the exact same code for the area shadows you find in max lights.
b)Make the area light bigger, with area-invariant units for its intensity, and you'll be able to control the shadow softness by changing the area size.
Should you need a different illumination area from that of the shadow, duplicate the light, and make one just cast shadows, while the other just light (with the include/exclude lists.).
c) The area light of V-Ray only has area shadows, so i don't know how to answer your last question.

[bartel]

kosso_olli
Physical plausibility is important, no question, but is not always the be-all and end-all, and thankfully V-Ray still offers a lot of cheats even with its own lights. If that wasn't the case and we were truly limited by how things work in the real world, I'd probably opt for a different renderer. Even with real life photo shoots, sometimes several shots are stitched, retouched and combined to achieve a certain kind of look, e. g. by getting rid of certain reflections or achieving others. While it's best to understand how all of this works and why something looks the way it does, there is no reason to jump through all kind of hoops to achieve a certain look when unticking a checkbox can do the same.
I'm pretty sure you are using and profiting from cheats yourself in your own workflow without realizing it, and be it because it's happening under the hood. The only reason I personally accept in regards to not implementing requested (optional) cheats are development time/expected usage and technical problems.

@^Lele^ I think he means shadow softness (or size) independent of the light size.

[^Lele^]

@^Lele^ I think he means shadow softness (or size) independent of the light size.

I think i replied to that in point c.
Point lights be point lights, so he isn't having an independent shadow size, he's having a zero sized light.

[kosso_olli]

kosso_olliI'm pretty sure you are using and profiting from cheats yourself in your own workflow without realizing it, and be it because it's happening under the hood. The only reason I personally accept in regards to not implementing requested (optional) cheats are development time/expected usage and technical problems.

Not very much, no. I set lights to invisible, sometimes I set objects to be invisible in refraction to get clean alphas. That's it, not more cheating apart from that.
Car beauties for clients often involve 3-6 seperate renderings of different lighting situations. Just like a photographer would do. For stuff I do myself, I don't even do post work except for some slight color correction in Camera Raw...

https://forums.chaosgroup.com/forum/...-cgi-racetrack
https://forums.chaosgroup.com/forum/...megascans-test

By the way, cheating stuff like unlocked highlight/reflection glossiness had to be removed because some significant rendering speedup would not have been possible otherwise. Setting objects to cast shadows of introduced heavy artifacts with adaptive domelight. For a short period of time it looked like this defeated the introduction of adaptive domelight, but fortunately Vlado found some heavy workarounds to make it happen. So yeah, this trickery stuff often causes more trouble then it solves, at least for the developers...

[bartel]

kosso_olli
So would you think it's a good argument if people suggested it should no longer be possible to set lights or objects to invisible because that's cheating and not how it works in the real world and they don't need it in their specific workflow? Or that there should be no adaptive domelight in the first place, because that's cheating as well, after all?
Like said, technical problems are a good argument, but if I personally was forced to choose between the ability to turn off shadows and some speed improvement, as impressive as it may be, I'd probably chose the former (or an option to decide for myself from case to case). Different people have different needs.

The thing is that Max now also comes with Arnold, and V-Ray wins for me right now exactly because it offers cheats, way better integration into Max and a far more advanced GPU render. The head start for the latter two will melt away to a certain degree over time. And I don't need two renderers doing essentially the same.

[^Lele^]

And I don't need two renderers doing essentially the same.

Oh do i not agree with this.
I try to stay as far from Arnold as i possibly can as well! ^^

[kosso_olli]

kosso_olli
So would you think it's a good argument if people suggested it should no longer be possible to set lights or objects to invisible because that's cheating and not how it works in the real world and they don't need it in their specific workflow? Or that there should be no adaptive domelight in the first place, because that's cheating as well, after all?
Like said, technical problems are a good argument, but if I personally was forced to choose between the ability to turn off shadows and some speed improvement, as impressive as it may be, I'd probably chose the former (or an option to decide for myself from case to case). Different people have different needs.

The thing is that Max now also comes with Arnold, and V-Ray wins for me right now exactly because it offers cheats, way better integration into Max and a far more advanced GPU render. The head start for the latter two will melt away to a certain degree over time. And I don't need two renderers doing essentially the same.

I'd choose speed over cheating, any time of day.
Invisible lights, invisible object, casting shadows off are all valid arguments.
But lighting include/exclude, affect reflection/specular, lights without falloff, shadows independent of area light size etc. could well be gone, I wouldn't miss a thing.

[bartel]

And that's perfectly fine, but that doesn't mean V-Ray shouldn't offer those options or that we shouldn't use or need cheats anymore. The line between valid and invalid cheats is not what you happen to need for your scenes.

[kosso_olli]

No offense, but I wonder what kind of scene one would actually need this? Can you give me an example, just curious.