Shadows dissapear!
11 messages in this thread
Here is the problem. When I render scene in the editor everything casts shadows
as set ( all global). But in the keyframer only the first frame casts shadows,
then they all dissapear. In any resolution. It is driving me NUTS! I have
checked every light, every object. It is a very large scene. 120,000 faces, 124
objects, 15 lights. I have 32 meg on a P5 90. I get a report on the current
status of 83000 page faults whatever that means.
I have a deadline, please help! thanks
Arturo
Hi Arturo,
<< I get a report on the current status of 83000 page faults whatever that
means.>>
Review pg 112 in your Installation Manual for more details about page faults..
<< I have a deadline, please help! thanks >>
My question would be to ask you what your MAP size is set to for your shadow
map? Since you are using Global parameters, the global parameters are initially
loaded from the 3ds.set file and can be modified from the Global Shadow Control
Dialog box. See pg 7-213 of the R3 ref man.
You should review pg 7-160.. I'm assuming that your map size is way too small
for your scene. Note the default size.
jonas[adesk]
Hi Jonas, thanks for the response. I have increased the map size of a couple of
lights (whose shadows would have to show in the foreground) to twice the
default size an I still don't get a shadow cast. I do get shadows if I render
from the editor. What is the difference? I have also turned off shadow casting
in most of the 15 lights in the scene except the foreground ones. most of the
lights are localized spots on individual objects.
Arturo
Hi Arturo,
<< I do get shadows if I render from the editor. What is the difference? >>
This I don't know… With regard to our discussion, I didn't think there was
one..?
<< I have also turned off shadow casting in most of the 15 lights in the scene
except the foreground ones. most of the lights are localized spots on
individual objects. >>
What do you think about the "Reminder:" found on the bottom of 7-163.. What is
the falloff of your lights, how far is your light from the objects? Both of
these are important in computing shadow map sized.. doubling it may not be
enough. The range is 10-4096.
Run a test.. Max it at 4096, expect paging and render one frame from the
keyframer. Any shadows?
jonas[adesk]
Hi Jonas, I think the distances of the lights are ok (close to the obj) and the
fallofs are tight. I ran a test deleting 70% of the objects in the background,
keeping all the lights exactly the same, and the shadows render! So it is not
the lights but the number of faces? I will now try to bring the original scene
and start deleting objects that are not so important to see at what point
shadows come back. Is there any light on this subject? <G> Thanks again for
any help
Arturo
p.s. I did not max it at 4096 since that does not seem to be the problem, don't
you think?
Hi Arturo,
<< I will now try to bring the original scene and start deleting objects that
are not so important to see at what point shadows come back. Is there any light
on this subject? >>
As you are doing your tests, please do an Info Status and record the results
for each variation of your scene. I'm very curious now…
jonas[adesk]
Will do, I am very frustrated and it is very time consuming to hide object by
object until it works! I will also try to keep the objects but turn off shadow
casting and receiving from the farther objects to see if it is the load that is
causing this. I am sure my client does not believe my excuse by now :-[
Art
Also, if you haven't already, try checking the view from each of the spotlights
involved one at a time (by using the "$" key) just to confirm the cone of
influence. If your lights, their targets, or the lit geometry are involved in
a complex hiarchy (expecially one that gets scaled, rotated, moved, etc. a lot)
then often then it can be dificult to know exactly what your lights affect at
all times. Veiwing from the spotlight's POV makes that a lot easier to track.
<k>
THanks, I tried that already with every light. The shadows that dissapear are
not only from the moving objects (which is just a single cluster) but also
shadows produced by stationary objects. There is not a lot of animation going
on, it is though a very large scene. I finally gave up for now and just
rendered the backgroud of the scen, placed it as a bitmap on a plane and
animated the foregroun objects, no problem with the shadows since the scen got
a lot smaller. But I coul not do that if the camera had to move.
Arturo,
I had a similar problem with vanishing shadows. I eventually worked around it
by creating another spot in virtually the same place, then deleting the
original spot. Just turning the original spot off would not remedy the problem,
it had to be deleted. I have no idea why this worked, but it did. You might
give it a try.
Gary
Thanks Gary, I'll give that a try. I know, somethings just happen with no
explanation .Today I lost the grid. It would not show up no matter what the
settings were. I had to delete the polys in the shaper and up pops the grid!
:-O