Sun/Mountain shadows on objects in a wide valley

[werner.poetzelberger]

Hi,

 

atm I am a bit stuck with an issue, which I guess is a common one and maybe has already been solved.

 

I have a wide valley with architecture in the middle. The seams of the valley form some (not too high) mountains.

 

My camera is circeling around the objects in the valley.

 

I need to have shadows of the mountains falling on the objects at dusk/dawn.

 

I have no clue, how to set the parameters of the shadowmap to get this effect.

 

Can someone help me on that, or is there way to fake it?

 

Thx,

 

werner

 

[werner.poetzelberger]

No one ever had such a task?

Hmm.

 

I think I have a 'fake' - solution.

 

I put a deferred decal cutting through the mountain silhouettes pointing in sun - direction..

Basically 2 decals: one in the east one in the west. Then I rotate the decal according to the sunangle.

Creates the desired effect.

 

Advantage: cheap and fast and controllable via the texture, as well not dependent on the shadow res, so I can keep low shadow distance for a sharp shadow close to the camera.

 

;)

 

werner

[pluton]

Hi Werner,

It seems that options "Cast shadow" in terrain surfaces are not enabled. Select all terrain surfaces (second "Surfaces" tab in terrain node) and enable this option. And make sure that Shadow distance parameter in Render Settings>Common is enough.

[werner.poetzelberger]

Hello,

 

this doesnt give me the desired result.

 

Turning up the shadow distance makes the shadows disappear completely.

 

I as well have very strange behaviors on the shadows when adjusting the distance.

It seems that the shadow is only visible in the correct way when tuning it into a specific range of values.

 

I have turned the shadows on for all surfaces.

 

Continuing testing ......

 

OK, I have some result here, but it is not 100 % satisfying as:

 

- I need to turn up the shadow distance in the world light to a very high value, which makes the shadow map more than low resolution. atm I have a value of 12500 and I turn up the shadow distance in the common render settings to 15000.

 

Now a get a shadow of the mountains onto the objects which is cool, but the resolution is the problem now.

 

Is this the approach you are proposing?

 

Do I get around by animating the shadow settings?

 

continuing .....

 

Ok maybe I got the wrong idea about the parameters. Is it that I need to set the Shadow Range to the maximum value (in fact the with of the valley) and the Shadow Distance in the render settings adjusting to the camera (which also effects the shadow resolution).

 

Hmm.

 

 

 

best.w.

[silent]

Hi Werner,

 

Sorry for the late reply.

 

Do you still have an issues with shadows setup in your world? If so, could you please send us your scene to check your shadows settings (with simple description of the issues)?

 

Thanks!