Pixelated shadow edges

[coNstantin]

hi so I have a problem with shadows... I saw on multiple youtube videos that in order to get sharp shadow edges I need to turn down the shadowFilterSize...

So I did and here's the horrible result: http://imgur.com/fUGrLhH

I don't know why it does that, I tried messing with all the other settings on the light but it does nothing.

Any idea ?

[Marco Skoll]

It's simple - don't turn the shadowfiltersize all the way down!

Because it affects the sharpness of the shadow mapping, you will eventually get a pixelated result if you sharpen it too much.

I wouldn't personally turn it lower than about 0.02, and that's pushing it unless you've turned up your shadowmapres.

[coNstantin]

How to change shadowmapres ? I can't find it

[Marco Skoll]

-shadowmapres is a launch option, it's not directly accessible while the program is running. It also heavily impacts program performance, to the point I usually have it turned down unless I'm doing the final render.

The main point of what I was saying though was not "turn up your shadowmapres", it was "turn up your shadowfiltersize" - if it looks pixellated, you've turned the slider down too low!

[coNstantin]

ok so I figured it out and it's much better now but it's not as sharp as this guy has it, take a look:

https://youtu.be/cKnpx9ajemg?t=2m51s
@ 2:51

I set the shadowmapres to 8192 (I read somewhere on the internet this is the max) and turned the shadowfiltersize to 0.01 but it's still not as sharp as this guy has it... I think it's because he has it all the way down to 0 but if I put it to 0 the edges become a little bit pixelated (not as much as before setting the shadowmapres)

[Zappy]

The wider a light is, the more stretched-out the shadow-map will be. If you want nice and sharp shadows, you have to make the light thinner (decrease its field of view).

[episoder]

sharpness depends on the distance and the angle of the light. the further away or larger the fov of the light, the smudgier the shadows edges. it projects it over a large area. just make it smaller andled or move it closer to obejct receiving the shadow. and just to optimize this. if you don't render at large resolution or need a wide area of shadows a smaller shadow map might be sufficient. depends on the overall coverage of the screen.

1080p needs just a really focused 2048 or 4096er to cover entirely. depending on the angles.

[coNstantin]

Originally posted by Zappy:

The wider a light is, the more stretched-out the shadow-map will be. If you want nice and sharp shadows, you have to make the light thinner (decrease its field of view).

Thanks for the tip.

Originally posted by episoder:

sharpness depends on the distance and the angle of the light. the further away or larger the fov of the light, the smudgier the shadows edges. it projects it over a large area. just make it smaller andled or move it closer to obejct receiving the shadow. and just to optimize this. if you don't render at large resolution or need a wide area of shadows a smaller shadow map might be sufficient. depends on the overall coverage of the screen.

1080p needs just a really focused 2048 or 4096er to cover entirely. depending on the angles.

I'm working on 720p, what value should I use ?

[Zappy]

Originally posted by coN:

I'm working on 720p, what value should I use ?

It highly depends on the specific scenes you're making and such. Personally, though, I always use 8192, but I also have a pretty good computer.

[coNstantin]

I'm mostly animating tf2 shorts...

Btw I got a pentium g4560 + gtx 1050ti and 8 gb ram

[Zappy]

Originally posted by coN:

I'm mostly animating tf2 shorts... -

It still depends on the specific scenes you're making.

[episoder]

try 4096 then and make sure the light fov and placement is good. it shouldn't matter much while you work on it. just when rendering it does. if you render wide shots or large scenes you may have to bump it to 8192. your graphics card should be able to handle it and 8 lights pretty well.

[Zappy]

Originally posted by Marco Skoll:

-shadowmapres is a launch option, it's not directly accessible while the program is running. It also heavily impacts program performance, to the point I usually have it turned down unless I'm doing the final render. -

By the way, I feel like I should mention that as far as I'm aware, shadowMapFilterSize is based around filtering an amount of pixels of the shadow-map, not a percentage of it, so working with one shadow-map texture size and rendering in another could provide a different-looking render than expected from the editing process when using high amounts of shadowMapFilterSize. But it is very long since I last didn't use a shadow-map resolution of 8192x8192, so I can very easily be wrong.

[Marco Skoll]

Originally posted by Zappy:

By the way, I feel like I should mention that as far as I'm aware...

I know, but I've never found it to be a major concern. I tend to have a sense of how the settings will look in the final version, and I obviously have the opportunity to adjust anything if it looks off after I've turned up the shadowmapres.

[Zappy]

Originally posted by Marco Skoll:

I know, but I've never found it to be a major concern. I tend to have a sense of how the settings will look in the final version, and I obviously have the opportunity to adjust anything if it looks off after I've turned up the shadowmapres.

Well, maybe you know, but that doesn't mean others know it too, and might switch to the higher shadow-map resolution and then go straight to exporting.