No Plant Shadows in PBR?


Chrisb222
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24 minutes ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

This is an exterior PBR. You can see the plant shadows in this one. They are not very real looking. I've softened them with some exterior lights. Second pic is with the exterior lights off and only the sun.

 

5acb994547c08_Untitled1.thumb.jpg.e14c8b9fd542a0ade9eceb79d461a2da.jpg

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Wow, they don't seem as realistic as Ray Traced plant shadows. Are those Chief plants? I get no shadow whatsoever from trees but it's probably my graphics. Guess I'll continue to stick with Ray Tracing... thanks

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Just now, Chrisb222 said:

 

Wow, they don't seem as realistic as Ray Traced plant shadows. Are those Chief plants? I get no shadow whatsoever from trees but it's probably my graphics. Guess I'll continue to stick with Ray Tracing... thanks

 

Yes, they are all Chief plants. I'm just running a comparison Ray Trace now, will post in a few minutes - I can already tell that they are much more realistic that the PBR shadows.

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1 minute ago, cv2702 said:

Strange soffit on the right hand side...

 That's because the material properties where set for PBR. To get a bit of sheen I had to crank up the reflectivity (reduce roughness). Now when I Ray Trace the sheen is too glossy, will need to reduce it. That's a big issue as material properties are not seen the same way between PBR and Ray Tracing.

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test.thumb.jpg.97531248491a7e1daef497e1ba820bc9.jpg

 

I like putting a big shadow across the front yard on my exterior renderings and couldn't get this look with PBR, or even anything close... esp with no plant shadows. I'm a little bummed that PBR isn't going to work for me but at least I don't have to upgrade now. :D

 

10 passes, 2 minutes with my humble CPU Intel graphics...

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Chrisb222 said:

test.thumb.jpg.97531248491a7e1daef497e1ba820bc9.jpg

 

I like putting a big shadow across the front yard on my exterior renderings and couldn't get this look with PBR, or even anything close... esp with no plant shadows. I'm a little bummed that PBR isn't going to work for me but at least I don't have to upgrade now. :D

 

10 passes, 2 minutes with my humble CPU Intel graphics...

 

 

 

Looks great Chris. I don't believe you would be able to get close to that quality with the current state of PBR. Yes, a Ray Trace takes a bit longer, but there are times when the result is well worth the wait.

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21 hours ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

 That's because the material properties where set for PBR. To get a bit of sheen I had to crank up the reflectivity (reduce roughness). Now when I Ray Trace the sheen is too glossy, will need to reduce it. That's a big issue as material properties are not seen the same way between PBR and Ray Tracing.

The fact that we need to set up material properties differently between PBR and RT is really annoying. 

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7 minutes ago, rispgiu said:

The fact that we need to set up material properties differently between PBR and RT is really annoying. 

 

Absolutely, I'm playing with that right now to see if I can find a balance so I don't have to keep changing materials and lighting when I wish to switch between rendering methods.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 4/9/2018 at 2:00 PM, TheKitchenAbode said:

Here is a direct comparison between the PBR and Ray Trace, both at the same resolution. There are some very noticeable differences throughout the scene. The scenes are only lit by the sun.

 

PBR

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Ray Trace

5acba9f46e188_Untitled2RayTrace.thumb.jpg.ec1eeb61daf97cb388b95b3ac9bf431d.jpg

Graham,

 

Late to the game ... I finally realized I can't get tree shadows at all in PBR.  Other shadows show up ok though.  I'm using CA plants (core), updated my libraries, still no tree shadow.

 

Am I missing some setting?

 

Could you post your plan so I can test it on my system?

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I have nothing 3D in my bonus library (X9 or X10).  The Plant Chooser returns zero 3D trees.  Are your 3D plants SSA by any chance?

 

BTW, importing 3D plants does validate your statement that only 3D plants produce shadows.

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6 minutes ago, cv2702 said:

I have nothing 3D in my bonus library (X9 or X10).  The Plant Chooser returns zero 3D trees.  Are your 3D plants SSA by any chance?

 

BTW, importing 3D plants does validate your statement that only 3D plants produce shadows.

I have SSA and maybe they are restricted to SSA users only, not sure but you could check online in the library download section.

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The 2D plants are really just image objects (also known as "billboards").  They do not cast shadows in any of the rendering techniques (including the new PBR technique).  They will cast shadows in ray trace views but these may or may not look very good depending on your camera angle relative to the sun angle.  If your sun is basically perpendicular to the plant, the shadow will look just like a line instead of what you would expect and want.

 

If you want more realistic shadows, your best bet is to use true 3D plant symbols.  We have a library of 3D plants available for download that is available to all current SSA members.  If you don't have SSA, you could always look for some that you could import as symbols from other sources on the web.  If you decide to import some other 3D plants, be warned that not all of the stuff you can find on the web will look very good or perform very well.  The 3D plants in our library have all been designed to work reasonably well with Chief.

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