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Note: the main advantage of raytraced shadows in 3DSr3 is that they respond
to object transparency, and opacity maps (for instance, a mapped leaf produced
by a deciduous Silicon Garden tree with Leaf Detail set to Medium would cast a
leaf-shaped shadow rather than a rectangular shadow as it currently does —
this means you would NEVER need to use Leaf Detail set to High!).
For any other use, the mapped shadows we've had all along are superior
(besides being MUCH faster, they can be soft-edged, for instance).
That's one advantage to ray-traced shadows, but not the only one. They
provide super-crisp edges and are absolutely accurate, regardless of
the area they have to cover (unlike shadow maps, which are
resolution-dependant). As a result, ray-traced shadows are perfect
for sunlight — either for architectural renderings, or for
outer-space animations.
PMJI, but does this mean that if I want a slightly soft edged
shadow to respond to transparency or opacity maps, I'm out of luck?
Just curious.
Ray-traced shadows accurately shadow the opacity map. If your opacity
map has hard edges, then the shadow has hard edges. If the opacity
map has soft edges, the shadow has soft edges.
But is that saying that mapped shadows still do not see opacity mapped and
transparent objects properly?
Thanks,
David
Shadow maps aren't sensitive to opacity, but ray-traced shadows are.
– G
The ray traced shadows with opacity maps are beautiful…