Hi all,

who knows strategies to make shadows lighter. Everything I am trying only seems to affect the object  colors or make the whole image lighter (and washed out).

Is there a way that focues only on the shadows?

The scene consists of a house in the foreground so the effect on the shadows is more important to me than it might be on an overall landscape.

Thanks in advance
Chris

What Vue version do you use? 

If you have LightTune or a version where this is included (Complete, Infinite etc), then you have the option to define the shadow darkness (or make it soft). This does exactly what you ask for.

You select the light source, do a right mouse click (context...) and select edit object. Then you go to the shadow tab in this editor and do the changes.

I am using Vue 7.4 xStr right now. I 'll check what I can find with the light source. Only was tuning in the Atmosphere Editor.

Yep, that's what I was looking for. Thanks alot for the quick reply!

To control the lighting of the shadows in the described method by wabe is the easy way to go, while using any of the available lighting models (like standard, global illumination, ...).

If you calculate with the Global Radiosity lighting model selected.
This already lightens up the shadows more naturally, because here in your case, it renders the light which in reality will be reflected from the house wall paint or ground colors.
And - right next to the Global Radiosity switch is a data field called 'Gain'.
Raising the value there for instance from 0.00 to 1.00 or some higher or lower, will influence, how much brighter or darker the shadows will be calculated.

I agree with Arraxxon. I never use the method suggested by Wabe. It's easy but to my eyes, it doesn't look natural enough. Furthermore, in certain situations it can introduce noise.

There are many other methods to achieve ligher shadows. From top of mind, I remember these below. Each one of them fits a specific situation better than others, so make sure you experiment in your particular case. For example, increasing glow intensity (option d) can be wonderful in dark forest scenes, it creates a kind of mystical glow.

a) increase sky dome lighting gain
b) use radiosity (with or without increasing gain)
c) move light balance slider more towards ambient
d) increase glow intensity (in the 'sky, fog, haze' tab) and then increase haze/fog
e) use secondary lights
f) use environment map

@arraxxon and rutra,

that beeing true its a very fast solution for me when I have an architect sitting next to me just wanting to have the shadows lighter :-)

I dont always have the time to fiddle around with all the settings. I have tried raising gain and then the shadow side on the object went lighter but the shadow in the ground didnt. When raising the sky dome gain the shadows on the ground went lighter but also the whole image and it looked washed out and flat. So I was quite happy with this quick fix solution for now.

But then again I very much appreciate the other strategies for the future. I still have so much to learn :-)