Hi,
I am having some issues with shadows and I have been with a lot of projects. In the upper right of this image you’ll see wood wrapping the top of the post. Where the wood meets the ceiling it look like it is floating. Shouldn’t I be seeing a darker line around the wood? It just doesn’t seem natural.
The wood material seems to be bleeding too much light; it will probably be better if you make it darker and use gamma correction on the rendered image (if you are not already using it).
Best regards,
Vlado
Gamma
I am using gamma 2.2 with linear color mapping. The color is correct. I remember I can tweak a setting to lessen the bleed, would that help? Is that the objects GI amount?
you may need a more precise gi solution, assuming you’re rendering with irrmap you can try enabling detail enhancement. it should bring back those contact shadows.
another way would be using bf as primary gi method, but of course render times and settings should change quite a bit.
Shadows
I’ll try that , thanks.
I got these render times under control for the first time. I had some down time so I did some testing. This scene took about 15 minutes to render. Normally it would take an hour+. I am finding out that a lot of that time is overkill. Start out low and only increase if you have to. Increase/decrease settings one at a time so you know what works and what doesn’t… a little tip from me 
Looks like low IrrMap settings, are you rendering using the Medium preset ?
IR
Medium settings 80/50. I’ll try high and see if that helps.
I see what you mean, sometimes it’s a trade off, either you render fast or you get all the nice details 
Tightening up the color threshold can help on that sort of thing
Color Threshold
Another spinner to play with. I’ll try that as well. I’ll report back with that works.
Hrm.. what are your min/max settings?
Dmc
DMC is 1/4
I think he means the Irradiance Map Min/Max, not the DMC sampler.
-3/-1, Both the high setting and details on didn’t do anything but add render time. The color threshold is -4, -2, -1. which one and which way should I start tweaking?
Does anyone think setting his Irradiance Map to Min -6/Max -1 might help to define those shadows a bit better? DMC to maybe 2/5 and try your Clr thres at .007 to start; lowering if need be?
dmc
is that the dmc clr thres or the irr clr thres?
The DMC clr thres
shadows
I tried both and none of the suggestions produced anything different.
Eh. When in doubt fake it; try a dirt material on it.
dirt
I tried everything so a dirtmap might have to do.