does it appear that the flower is not casting shadows?
cycles
two planes with emission for lights
a sun light
and a sky texture set to the background of world
the render looks great but it just seems like the shadows are missing from the flower at least?
any ideas?
thank you
I’m not seeing any shadows cast by the flower.
Here’s a few things you can check. Look in the object data for the flower (Properties tab looks like a cube). Go down to Ray visibilty and make sure Shadows is checked.
Check Light properties for your Sun Lamp. make sure box for “Cast shadow” beside size is checked.
Then play around with the size of your lights (Slider box for Size on light tab for Sun, actual physical size of emitter planes). Depending on how physically large the planes are or how large you have the sun size set to, they may be washing out each others shadows.
Just for testing purposes I’d turn off the two emitter planes and try the sun by itself in a quick test render to see if it’s casting shadow. Turn the size down if needed.
For sun lamps the clarity of shadows they cast is dictated by the Size you have set for them, distance from the object is irrelevant. From my experience if you set a sun’s size to more than about .3 the shadows tend to be non-existent. Set size to 0 gives perfectly crisp shadow edges, as you increase size it the edges become less defined to the point where the shadow eventually will disappear completely.
For planes set as emitter the physical size and strength of the emitter effects the type of shadow. Small size with a high strength will give much crisper shadows than a large plane set to a lower strength.
Play around with these numbers to see what you can get.
Another note about Sun Lamps. The angle they cast shadows at is determined by the angle you have them set to, not their relation to the object.
It will cast shadows for all objects it effects in the direction of the line indicator you see coming from it when in wire frame or solid view. if you have the indicator pointing down and to the left it will make items cast shadows as if it were above and to the right of things. Even if it’s directly beneath the object.
I hope that made sense. Kind of sleepy this afternoon.
thank you very much powerst. I think I may be lighting it in a way that the shadows arent dark at all
I may delete them all and start the lights over. maybe not
here is an update
Your ground is pretty impressive…is it hand modeled or a displacement modifier. Overall its a real solid piece…I like it…great style:P
thank you very much for your comments @DerekG1080
I got a nice ground photo from CGtextures
I used ShaderMap Pro to make maps of the photo
I used the displacement modifier and a high res mesh to get the really dramatic ground contours
there is a plane in there to make the darker mud/dirt deep in the cracks.
