Cineversity

I’ve been looking around but couldn’t find out, is it possible to increase the hardware render shadow resolution?

Hi NNenov,

Would you please tell me what you have in mind? Hard Render Shadow Resolution. I use 3D in my third decade, but so far I haven’t heard about it.

Did you work with Soft-shadows? Do you like to have more details in those?

All the best

Hi Dr. Sassi,
Sorry I didn’t explain myself very well,
I meant the shadow resolution of the hardware-renderer, i.e. what you see in the real-time viewport and when you set hardware render mode in your render settings.
When a light with hard shadow is enabled in the scene, and shadows is enabled in the viewport and render settings, you can see hard shadows cast in real time, I was just wondering if there was a way to increase their resolution.
I’m working on some experiments and I prefer the look and feel of hardware renderer.

Thanks for clearing that, NNenov.

AFAIK, it depends on the abilities of your Graphic Card then. The more GPU power it have, the better/faster the results.

If you can just install a larger card and get better shadows is not to my knowledge.

Keep in mind that this option is not a perfect option at all.

[In Hardware mode] Open the scene file below. Switch on and off the Light.1 and render each time. Now move the Light.1 on top of the Lights and do it again, on - render, off -render.

Can you see the difference? It doesn’t render all lights. For me, that is a reason not to use it.

Do another test, the Hardware takes only a few parameter from the light, position direction and color [shadow} if it is Soft, Raytraced or Area, no change.

I’m not really certain what you like to achieve.

All the best

You are right, the hardware render shadow is limited in various ways. I just liked the aesthetic of the hardware render for the set of animations I’m working on. Also it complements my workflow, I am just focusing on motion and fast feedback on my project iterations.

You are limited to how many lights can cast shadows simultaneously, but this is adjustable in the settings (preferences > openGL > maximum lights / shadows).
I suspect, as you said, this may be adjustable in my actual GFX card settings, another thing to try would be to scale up my entire project since the shadow resolution might be based on scale.

Yes, that is my impression, NNenov.

It is a triangle of hardware, quality and speed. We artists have to find our balance in it.

Enjoy your weekend