hi,
i was wondering on how i could achieve soft shadows with a point light.
i need some really sublte shadows for my render (added below), but i dont get a soft shadow with a point light. and with a spot light, the shadows are not as i need them.
so… tl:dr how can i achieve soft shadows with point lights in 2.53??
and is it possible to add a light inside of the mech, but so, that the light and shadow will be casted correctly?
also, if anyone has a good idea on how to set up my lights better? i would appreciate it.
ps: i also use indirect lighting…
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But you can get soft shadows from point lights. Make sure it’s casting ray shadows, set an appropriate size and increase the sample count from one. The more samples, the less noise. The larger the size value, the softer the shadows.
I’d recommend using a point light, just have it below the glowing part of the fish, not sure what it’s called.
Anyway, match it to the colour of the glowing material, I believe they are a lightish blue, set the samples to 8 and very slightly adjust the softness, no more than 1.100, well depending on the scale of the scene.
If you want more control over the specular highlights disable the specular option on the first light, duplicate it, disable diffuse, lower the intensity and turn off shadows, adjust the colour/ fall off until you’ve fond something you like.
Then, once you have the two key lights in, I would make use of the negative lamp feature, by setting a lamp to negative you actually detract light from the scene, place these in places where you want it to be darker, or pitch black, these aren’t often used but they can add an amazing amount of feeling to a lit scene.
thank you very much the replies.
i was wondering about the soft shadows, because the shadows seemed to disappear, as soon as i set the samples higher than 1.
turns out, i had to set the softness to 0.11 
i already had a negative light in the belly of the big fish, so it now looks like this(see below)
i’m still trying to find a way on how to model the big fish. either add some modelled bones and make him transparent with some glowing dotted stripes,or just glowing stripes on the model as it is. but i think i have to sculpt it a little firther, to get some texture on him.
also i dont think, that i’ll use specular, because the light is somewhat indirect.
haha, just noticed, maybe i should give him a big-ass tounge 
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How about some scales? And nicer eyes? And some fog? And some particles in the water? Maybe zoom in a little and blur the big fish so that it isn’t totally obvious it’s there at first glance? There’s plenty you can do 
i know. it’s not even close to being finished. i think i’ll add teh particles in after effects, because i’m more familiar with it there.i think the most will end up in post production in the composite editor.
i think i’ll also add some sculpted textur to the big fish (but i only have 2GB ram, so it will be a pain in the a**)
and this shot will take a lot of time, because i’m extremely new to blender and this serves as kind of a tutorial for me.
so i’ll learn lighting, sculpting, modelling, rigging, note editor, texturing…
