Thin structures giving off duff shadows

[Trevor Robinson]

This is my first post and also I need a fast answer so I posted it here first!

I’ve got a lighting/rendering problem for you that I just cant get my head round,

I work for a Design company in the UK in the 3D dept and I’m working on a large flythrough of a new marina project (unfortunately I cant show you a picture as it is all Top secret! )

the problem is in the daylight system I think… the fly though is set high over buildings and the lampposts and other thin structures are giving off Osolating ray traced shadows that spoil the mov.

The thing is very big 19,000 frames 12,000+ objects 20,27503 faces I’m using a Powermac G5 and 3dsMax 8 the frames are 1024wide by 576 high Any suggestions? I have never come across this one as all my other stuff is close in any ideas will be gratefully received! How do I smooth the shadows out or am I screwed?

Trev

 

[Albuquerque]

I'm not much help but this forum is more for "off topic" sorts of things, like your favorite YouTube video or current world events that aren't linked to computers. YOu'll likely have much better luck in one of the 3D forms, perhaps algorithms and coding?

I'll send a message to a mod and see if one of them can come move this for you

Oh, and of course, welcome to the forums!

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

I will prefix this reply with the information that I know absolutly nothing about 3dsmax or any other 3d design tools. So I am just throwing in random guesses!

I would guess that any rendering program is going to have different quality settings for rendering the video (i.e. fast and crude for preview, slow but high quality for final production), is it possible that you are rednering with a preview type setting where they are cutting down on some of the detail. Perhaps running at a higher quality rendering setting would remove the problem.

How do you mean oscillating? Do the shadows flicker or move or what? The clearer you can make the problem the easier someone here can help.

How about knocking up a test that just has this problem e.g. a single lamppost from high up without all the Marina and buildings, then you would be able to show people and perhaps get a useful reply?

CC

 

[Davros]

can you export the scene and render it in a different program lightwave maybe it could just be a 3ds max bug

 

[Simon F]

the problem is in the daylight system I think… the fly though is set high over buildings and the lampposts and other thin structures are giving off Osolating ray traced shadows that spoil the mov.

The thing is very big 19,000 frames 12,000+ objects 20,27503 faces I’m using a Powermac G5 and 3dsMax 8 the frames are 1024wide by 576 high Any suggestions? I have never come across this one as all my other stuff is close in any ideas will be gratefully received! How do I smooth the shadows out or am I screwed?

Trev

Without actually seeing an example, my guess is that you simply have an aliasing problem. I would guess that the only practical solution here is to crank up the AA quality (probably a setting in the rendering software) OR (equivalently) increase the rendering target resolution for the frames and then, downscale the images to the required resolution.