Shadows through Opacity maps??

[golly]

Is there any way to force Vray to cast shadows (ideally area shadows) through a couple of trees made up of opacity-mapped planes?

thanks in advance

[casewolf]

This is absolutely no Problem ! I don't get the question though, simply use Vray Shadows in the Light Settings and click on Area Shadows ?!

D.

[golly]

Sorry I should've specified....
I don't want big square shadows. I want the shadows to show individual leaves (which is detail in the opacity map)

[doan]

Yes - You can achieve that putting your opacity map in the refraction slot with the IOR = 1. You should then check affect shadow.

PS : make sure that your diffuse and opacity map are Vraymtl.
Et voilà your leaves's shadows.
Hope it help !

[sk_fly]

They don't even need to be vray materials. I am working on a project doing a whole forest with no shadow problems at all, using lots of opacity maps and max standard materials. Also I know everyone has said that vray mareials with the opacity map in the refaction slot, or blend materials are faster than max standard materials for opacity. This may be true is using GI, but I tried all three methods for myself and found that standard materials are faster than vray using the refraction slot. I must ad I am using the internal copy of vra, I don't know if that makes a difference.

[golly]

Ah yes....sorry people....the old "Affect Shadows" button was the trick.
If only all 3d was a simple as a checkbox......

[Da_elf]

sk_fly do some tests and you will notice that when GI is involved using standard materials with opacity can double or tripple your render times. and on a big render thats not an option. Vray materials with the opacity map in the refraction channel with affect shadows and affect alpha is the key to faster renders.

[sk_fly]

Da_elf, my tests were done without, GI, normal lighting with vray shadows. I'm sure that with GI vray materials whould be much faster, but for my test regular materails worked better, about half the render time.

Shana