Soft Shadows in Redshift Exterior Final

[MGuilfoile]

I don't do many exteriors, so I'm probably doing something wrong. I have a single Directional light in the scene (acting as the Sun). I'm using Redshift and it seems to do fairly well. It's not really close to what I can get with the Final Rendering style with Renderworks, but it is not bad. The one thing I miss, however, are soft shadows. The Soft Shadows selection in the light's OIP is grayed out AND has a gray square in it. What's up with that? That doesn't mean anything. Anyway, how does one get soft shadows with Redshift? I realize there are many things that are not (yet?) supported. Is a Soft Shadows setting one of them?

 

Thanks,

MH Brown

[grant_PD]

If it's an exterior, have you tried environment lighting using a background?  That usually gives pretty good results.

[MGuilfoile]

Thank you, yes, I have "Physical Sky, Mostly Sunny" selected, but I'm not getting natural looking shadows one would expect from sunlight. Their edges are far too crisp.

Is it possible to have soft shadows with a Directional light?

 

MH Brown

[grant_PD]

Seems possible on my side.  I just rendered in redshift these two images, there is only the background (same as yours) and 1 directional light.  I turned the soft shadows option off on one, there is a clear difference.

[Kevin K]

Grant, speaking of soft shadows and also related to your issue with 'Shaded Renders' not working so well on your viewports.....To get around that problem. could you not use another rendering method (now that I see you use Redshift) like Custom RW, Realistic, or even Redshift, that will produce much better reflections, texture quality, etc than 'Shaded' can produce? Just a thought to get around 'Shaded' not working so well on your Viewports?

 

Look familiar ?  🙂

 

 

Edited March 13 by Kevin K
screenshot not needed

[grant_PD]

@Kevin K yes, I could.  These were for quick concepts and I was wanting to produce renders in seconds.  Redshift is fast, but I actually wanted to be faster and a little more loose with the lighting.  

[Kevin K]

I get it 🙂  I sort of thought that may be your response. Whatever works, right?

[MGuilfoile]

Thanks for posting, Grant. I see now what my problem was. If you use the Visualization palette to select a light to edit you cannot select soft shadows. It is grayed out with a small square in the selection box. I suppose this is a bug with the palette. So, I selected the light on my design layer and, what do you know, I could then select soft shadows and get the same effect you get in your sample rendering above. Thanks for the help!

 

MH Brown