Strange Shadowing

[JAKiii]

Hello Keyshot Braintrust,

What's with the strange shadowing on this image? I'm using the same paint material across many surfaces, but some of those surfaces render with this splotchy shadow. Render settings are high. Any ideas...?

Thanks,
Jamie

[KeyShot]

is this rendered using the advanced rendering mode? If yes, then you should increase the global illumination quality.

[DriesV]

I'm also getting pretty bad results with advanced rendering since the final release version of 4.3.

1st image is realtime reder.
2nd image is advanced control render, with GI quality @ 5.
Lighting with a studio HDRI.

Dries

[thomasteger]

Make sure to turn off "Global Illumination Cache" in the advanced settings of the render menu.

[DriesV]

Thomas, without cache I'm getting a distinct noise pattern.

Dries

[thomasteger]

And GI quality is set to 5?

[JAKiii]

I solved this by un-checking "Sharp Shadows" in the Advanced Rendering option -

[DriesV]

I solved this by un-checking "Sharp Shadows" in the Advanced Rendering option -

Thanks for this tip!
The sharp shadows option does indeed seem to introduce artifacts, no matter what other values in advanced settings. At least in my scenes, on my machine...

1st image: GI cache on, sharp shadows on
2nd image: GI cache on, sharp shadows off
3rd image: GI cache off, sharp shadows on
4th image: GI cache off, sharp shadows off
5th image: realtime reference

Render settings used for advanced control renders: 16 samples, 6 ray bounces, anti aliasing @ 1, shadow @ 1, GI @ 1, pixel blur @ 1.5

You can clearly see there are shadow/GI problems in the renders with sharp shadows on.

Dries

[thomasteger]

What happens if you increase the GI quality with GI Cache off and SS on?

[DriesV]

Thomas,

Both images with GI cache off, sharp shadows on.
1st image: GI quality @ 3
2nd image: GI quality @ 5

Dries

[DriesV]

Any update on this, guys?
KeyShot has become totally unusable for me when rendering with advanced control in 4.3 due to these artifacts. Unless I turn off Sharp shadows, which alters the appearance (depth quality) of the image a lot.
Btw, the artifacting only happens with HDR lighting. When HDRI brightness is 0 and physical lights are used, the artifacts are gone.

The problems are especially apparent on scenes with many GI bounces.

Dries

[KeyShot]

Hi Dries,

We are looking into this. If you can share a model with beta@luxion.com then that would be great.

Thanks,

Henrik

[br3ttman]

Are you able to increase your import tessellation, whether in the native CAD program or as you import into KeyShot?  Yesterday, we were experiencing very much the same thing with splotchy shadows and highlights.  After double checking and adjusting shadow quality, global illumination render quality, environment size, we ended up reimporting our SolidWorks model with the beta importer at higher tessellation values and now the renderings are cleaner and the splotchiness seems to be gone.

On a related note, we're getting very good SolidWorks import using the Beta import option.  However, when we choose that option, it also brings in most of our surface geometry from our master models as well, even though they're hidden on layers within each part.  It can be a bit tedious going through each of the parts and deleting all the extra surface quilts to set-up a scene.  Worse yet, if we have to re-import part changes we have to do it all over again.

[thomasteger]

br3ttj - is this still happening with 4.3? And also, why are you not using the plugin with live linking?

[br3ttman]

Thomas - as for "still happening with 4.3", I'm assuming you were referencing my comment regarding all the hidden surfaces passing through.  Yes, using the "beta" import option for SolidWorks, this still happens.  As for "Live Linking", we had troubles in the past and just hadn't tried it in a while, but we're doing a lot of new KeyShot rendering this week, so will give it another try.