Ceiling Fan with funny shadow

Working on a model/animation of a ceiling fan. (Liked the way the lights & shadows play across the ceiling when it spins). Anyway, by what you’ll see, I’m still new at this and the problem I’m seeing is probably a common newbie mistake. I’ve highlighted in red a strange shadow I’m seeing. The lighting here comes from 8 spotlights arranged inside the light globe of the lamp, shining outward to try and approximate a light bulb.

Notice that the shadow on the ceiling seems to be darker at the base of the fanblade where the blade is mounted to the metal arm of the fan motor. Why is that? Its like the fan blade and metal arm are translucent and it takes the two together to create a fully dark shadow.

The metall arm is a mesh, the blade is a curve. I’ve tried to convert the curve to a mesh but it makes no difference.

Besides this problem, any other suggestions to improve this picture? Is the lighting to bright along the walls? Too dark around certain areas of the lamp itself?

Thanks!

http://questions.multiply.com/photos/photo/1/3.jpg

Muhahahahahah you have a red cross :Z

You’re darker-lighter shadow problem may be you’re lighting, you may have 2 light sources pointing in the same direction both with shadows on.

It looks to me to be an issue with the Distance setting of the lamp, and perhaps your clipsta and clipend. If you want a good demonstration on how to use spot lamps correctly try: this.

Its a brain full but you will likely find your answer in there. In fact, everyone who finds this thread that hasn’t read it should read it :slight_smile:

Yes, ClipSta was the problem. I’d played with all those parameters before, but with your suggestions, I went back for a closer look. Turns out that the way my spots are arranged in a circle, pointing outwards, cones overlapping, that the line between broken and not broken was between 0.1 and 0.2.

I put several sample images in my WIP folder, showing the problem in this file as well as a couple of simple models to show this behaviour. Take a look if you’re interested. There are descriptions of what’s in the blend file if you click on the thumbnails. Images 5 and 6 in particular.

In the fixed image of the ceiling fan, I warmed the light a little with a yellow tint and brightend everything with a hemi pointing up from the floor. Suggestions?

(PS: when I refer to ‘broken’ here, I’m referring to my blend file, not blender itself)

Seems a bit bright now… perhaps reduce the energy of the spots to give them a more subtle light. This is blinding atm.