In my light settings I've increased my various map resolutions to 4096, and have done the same in the render settings (preview). But I'm still getting very rough ground shadows.

I've tried increase the sub-division on the ground plane, but that hasn't helped at all.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated!

Try increasing the shadow blur radius in your light properties, see if that helps.

bwldrd posted at 11:32AM Mon, 27 January 2020 - #4377904

Try increasing the shadow blur radius in your light properties, see if that helps.

Thank you to replying to my poorly titled post (how the hell did I miss that error in the heading -- I can't even blame it on booze because (for once) I wasn't drinking!). I'll give it a shot tonight and let you know if it works.

bwldrd posted at 11:59PM Mon, 27 January 2020 - #4377904

Try increasing the shadow blur radius in your light properties, see if that helps. Thank you, but that had zero effect. I suspected as much because this is a Comic Book Preview, not a Firefly or Superfly render.

I did find a workaround, I'm happy to say. I'm going to keep looking at other settings and see if I can do this without completely changing the source material, but for now, this is an excellent fix.

The ground is a high-resolution ground plane without a texture (that is to say, it has the default Poser material applied).

1. In the Material Room, I select the Ground Plane.
2. I then click on the button (far right) "Set up Toon Render."
3. It asks if I want a specular highlight: I said "No."
4. The render style of this one item is now set to Toon.
5. I change the DarkColor property to Black.

Now, when I render I get a nice, crisp shadow on the ground.

As I said, there are other properties to explore, so I'm going to look at them, too. But for now, this is a solid approacch with which I can work.

Do you have antialias rendered images turned on in your render settings, for preview rendering?

Notice the difference in the highlighted area shadows without versus with antialaising turn off/on. Shouldn't need all the workaround or a ground plane. These renders where with the toon renderer in preview mode, no ground plane but still has shadows.

bwldrd posted at 1:02PM Tue, 28 January 2020 - #4378111

Do you have antialias rendered images turned on in your render settings, for preview rendering?

Hoo Hoo! Probably not! I will check this evening and let you know. Thank you very much for the tip!

bwldrd posted at 1:05AM Wed, 29 January 2020 - #4378115

Notice the difference in the highlighted area shadows without versus with antialaising turn off/on. Shouldn't need all the workaround or a ground plane. These renders where with the toon renderer in preview mode, no ground plane but still has shadows.

Thank you, but it turns out that I did have the anti-alias box checked.

Are you working with Toon renders? I'm using Texture Shaded with the Comic Book Preview turned on. I suspect that has something to do with it. But if you have any other ideas, I'm game to try them!

If you look, you only have it checked on the right side. The left side, where the problem is, doesn't have it checked.

RedPhantom posted at 9:42AM Wed, 29 January 2020 - #4378213

If you look, you only have it checked on the right side. The left side, where the problem is, doesn't have it checked.

Thanks for input. Definitely appreciated.

But that's not my image: My image is the one with the guy and the gun. bwldrd has the image with the cute robot, and he was showing me a "Before and After" look at the effects of anti-aliasing.

Turns out that anti-aliasing doesn't seem to have any discernible effect on Comic Book Preview renders.

I have done some renders using the comic book filter, both color and B&W. But have never really paid much attention to the ground shadows, as the B&W where relatively clean like the one posted, and the color ones are usually so dark toned you can't see shadows anyhow.

bwldrd posted at 12:10PM Wed, 29 January 2020 - #4378240

I have done some renders using the comic book filter, both color and B&W. But have never really paid much attention to the ground shadows, as the B&W where relatively clean like the one posted, and the color ones are usually so dark toned you can't see shadows anyhow.

Thanks. I'm going to reach out to artist Brian Haberlin via Facebook and see if he can offer any insights. At least for the moment I can use the Toon Texture workaround.

Only other thing I can think of is what are the sample settings for your antialiasing. It goes from 1 to 8. I have mine set at 8.

Sorry about not seeing who posted. Try increasing the preview shadow map size. It's on the propteries tab for your light.