Cycles - Transparency Shadows
Transparent shadows - based on physical transmission - in cycles - would be desirable. I am not talking about complicated caustics calculations, rather simple "sun shines through the window"-cases :).
Maybe I am missing something and there is a button I haven't found. I would love to stand corrected.
But any render engine I know does this automatically. I would love to see Cycles do this, too
At the moment - as seen on the screenshot - this seems to be the workaround - which seems very "manually guessed.
Would love to hear any feedback. Thanks!
7 Comments
Is this what you're trying to achieve?
No, I am looking for straightforward sharp shadows for glossy glass (as in my preview). But to achieve this I have to set up a strange Mix-Shader with a raycasting switch of sorts. That feels weird.
Thing is, that ANY render engine I know does this in the main shader without any tweaking, but in Cycles you have to "force" sharp shadows in a non-physical way.
That said I know that - physically correct - you would need to do caustics, which is overkill for any standard interior scene with sunlight- so that is not the goal.
Put short - I think the principle BSDF-shader should give you sharp shadows for a glossy glas setup :).
I don't think I understand, if you want sharp shadows wouldn't you just reduce the size of the lights in the scene? No shadow is sharp IRL
You're asking for something physically inaccurate from a physically accurate renderer.
In Cycles, objects do not control the sharpness of the shadows, lights and emissions do.
With that being said, I was able to get something " close " using nodes. lensdump.com/i/tJLkZk
This method kinda stinks and still requires smaller light sources but it's the closest I got.
Is lolock's example physically correct though?
I don't know if lolock's example is really physically correct but it is more true to life than what Peter is asking. Cycles is making an effort of being more physically based by default and I don't see that as a negative, especially if OP has found a way around the physically based nature of cycles to get what he wants despite the limitations.
it the principled shader's settings are not physically correct, then i dunno what to do with it.