Various things about Photometric lights, soft shadows, etc. mrArea lights The show icon in viewport only works with the mental ray renderer. Ray trace shadows are only soft using mental ray. Note -- Don't forget to work with the size of the light as well as the samples, usually increasing them both.
With scanline, you get soft shadows using area shadow Photometric lights You always want to know exactly the size of you object in real world terms. Forget photometric lights if you don’t. Target distance is here. In this case it is 42 inches, a reasonable distance. [1 generic unit = 1 inch be default. Look into your Unit setup to be sure.] Photometric Point Lights Area shadows are great and remember, they only work with scanline: Mental ray or scanline, ray tracing looks the same with point lights due to the singular light source. Transparent shadows are very nice with point lights. You can use any shading type or renderer. Soft Area shadows are not supported in mental ray. Photometric Area lights You will get very nice soft shadows using mental ray with ray trace shadows Using scanline, you will need to use Area shadows for a soft edge. They will be slower to render than ray trace shadows in mental ray. Remember, the size of your area light is critical to the softness of the shadow, and, whether the light is a rectangle or a disc light, etc. Linear Photometric lights The same basic story applies to the linear light. A long linear light will appear to cast hardly any shadows, as the shadows are flooded with a wide light source. |
