Whenever I turn on raytracing in my scene, I get the following result, no matter what kind of lights or how many I use… I could understand if the shadows were dark and black with sharp edges, but this just looks dirty and weird.
Turn off Ambient Occlusion in the world materials.
GreyBeard
That worked! What the hell is that option for?
Turn off ambient occlusion in the world settings (F8). This effect is also known as a dirt map. You might not like it now but you will later on after you get tired of your scenes looking plain. D’oh!!!, you beat to the punch GreyBeard.
If you use AO then you won’t have to wory about setting up lights in the scene.
If you AO looks like that increase the samples, but it will increase render time though. You probably should you lights in combination wiht AO. I personaly almost never use AO, since it takes a long time to render and standard lights give you much more control and realism.