Strange Shading in Cycles

Even though I have a subsurf modifier and smooth shading on the objects, they are shading as if the shading is set to flat. You can see this even with subsurf of level 2 if you look closely. Am I missing a setting or something?


Recalculating the normals might work but I’m not sure :confused:

Low poly object + high contrast lighting + path tracer = terminator artefact.
There is no way around this but to increase the mesh density even further…

So according to the article you shared, I need to increase the ACTUAL mesh density without the subsurf to get rid of this artifact then?

No: Subsurf is applied to the mesh when the geometry data is sent to the render device (CPU/GPU).
So, increasing the render Subsurf level will do.

So this is happening on a character I’m making for a movie, and I can’t afford to increase the subsurf to 5 to get this affect to go away… do you know of any tricks to get around this?

Shadow termination is an issue with most ray/path tracers. The solution has usually been to use more subdivision. If this isn’t an option for you, try “Adaptive” in the subsurface modifier and set your dicing rate as high as it will go before you start seeing polys. Take note that when you change the dicing in the modifier while watching it in the view port, it’s actually setting the render rate much lower (finer). So what you need to do is, once you get it looking smooth enough, look at our viewport value and plug that into your render settings. You viewport will go back to looking crappy but when you render, it will look nice and smooth.

Also, You can set you light size larger to make a smoother falloff and softer shadows. This might not be necessary though. I have a feeling that as soon as you set “Adaptive” you’ll be fine.

Thanks so much, worked like a charm!