Hi,
I’m wondering what types of lighting/kind of setup would work best for furs. I’ve made some balls of fur on grass, except it doesn’t look realistic… Can anyone tell me what I should add/remove/modify in my scene? I’ve included the render (cropped) and also the top and side view of the 3D window.
Top View:
Side View:
Render:
Well, your materials are a bit weird, buuut…
Buffer shadows are the way to go, for small scenes.
EDIT: Actually, when I say ‘weird’ I know it’s not neccesarily very helpful. What I mean is your grass is too green and perfect. It’s not organic, it’s just, like, bright green. Also. You’re missing a fill light, assuming this is the sky. Try a low powered blueish hemi shining down from above to make the shadows less black and stuff, too.
Expanding on the spotlights. Buffer shadows are about 100 times faster, and since you can use ‘soft’ and ‘bias’ to offset and blur the shadow, you’ll have more gentle, natural-looking distribution.
you should add alot more lights from diffrent sides.
Or for a quick fix turn on the ambient occlusion.
bump up the Ambient light received to flatten out the blackness down near dirt level.
I’ve added some more lights here and there and tried to use buffered shadows. The problem is that no shadows turn up. Am I forgetting to turn on a setting? I’ve enabled buffered shadows for the materials and also the spot lamp, and shadow calculation in the under the scene panel.
And also, the fur looks less like quills now, which is good. As for the grass, it actually looks less real now. Probably because I turned off raytracing and the shadows don’t show up right. I’m still not sure what material would make it look more organic.
Raytraced shadows for spotlights only work if raytracing is turned on! However, I’d use buffered shadows, as they have better softness.
By the way, did you try ambient occlusion? It needs raytracing enabled.
Actually I meant that I was trying to do without raytraced shadows and use buffered shadows instead, as they’re faster, but for some reason buffered shadows aren’t turning up. I had no problem with raytraced shadows, but I’m trying to use buffered shadows and they don’t work. That’s what I’m confused about.
P.S. Thanks to those who gave advice. I’m still trying out different options.
EDIT:
I added a texture to the grass and adjusted the hardness levels. Still, I’m having no luck with shadows.
