I'm probably whistling in the wind here, but does anyone know of any way to optimise the shadow map calculations? One spotlight with a 40 degree cone angle and one V3 on a flat plane should not require 3 or 4 minutes to calculate the shadow map, surely. If you have a link you can point me to somewhere, that's fine, but this is fast becoming an exercise in frustration.

What are your system specs? Mine don't take near that long.

Shadow maps in DS take about the same time as they do in poser 6. I've done identical scenes in both apps and see very little difference. It's just the way it is. However, I requested a lo-rez shadow map option for fast renders quite a while ago, and it's been assigned to 'Daz Studio - Future', so hopefully, we'll get it one day. mac

Well, my system specs are way, way above the minimum, so that's not it. I can get a shadow map solution in LightWave in seconds, even using fairly high values. This is like having a car with the bonnet welded shut. You can't even check the oil and water, let alone tweak the timing. I really dislike this one size fits all approach.

No, It should not take so long, agreed, and for most of us it doesn't. Perhaps some shader or map values on your figure are the issue here? Have you tried simple props in the same setup? V3 with blank maps? What sort of times are you getting for those? And what render settings are you using? 3DL, DOF, etc?

I'll do a test and post some info a bit later, but I'm not doing anything out of the ordinary really.

This image required 5 minutes 5 seconds of shadow map calculation time. I got it down to a minute by turning off cast shadows for the floor. So that was the problem all along. Mind you, 60 seconds still seems like an extraordinarily long time. This almost seems like a bug. I would have thought the renderer was capable of deciding fairly quickly if the floor was actually casting shadows onto anything and then ignoring shadow calculations for it, once it decided there was nothing for it to cast shadows onto.

I think you'll find if you take off reflection on that plane, the shadow render time will come way down. I've noticed even if a little bit of clothes trim has reflection enabled, and I don't notice before trying a render, the render time becomes insanely long. Hold on a moment, though... is the length of time needed for shadow calcs related in any way to render time for reflection calcs...? Anyone know?

I don't think so - the shadow map calculation is working out the illumination in each little cell that the map divides the scene into; since light doesn't bounce in the renderer reflection shouldn't have an eeffect, though transparency might.

No, shadow map calculation time is not affected by surface settings like reflection, although anything with transparency that is casting shadows will have an effect. That's why stuff like hair or eyebrows with transparency maps noticeably slow down a render.