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In order for an object to cast ray-traced shadows onto other objects, it must contain polygons that face the object receiving the shadow. In other words, the surface normal of a polygon must face the surface receiving the shadow. This is rarely a problem with solid objects, but if you cast shadows of flat planes, and do not see a shadow, make sure to use the Double Sided surfaces attribute or build the object with polygons facing both ways.
The Cast Shadows option on this tab allows a light to cast a shadow, whether Visible to Camera on the Basic tab is on or off.
For this example,
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here are two
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lights - a Distant and an Ngon - with the
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distant light being strong. The Light Properties panel shown is for the lower,
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Ngon light
Warning |
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Turning Cast Shadows on in the Shadows tab makes the light behave like an object casting a shadow created by other lights in the scene. Turning Cast Shadows on for a light is basically turning the light into a light blocker |
Shadow Type
You initially set lights to generate shadows via the Shadow Type setting. By default, any light added to a scene has its Shadow Type set to Ray Trace. Ray tracing a light produces accurate shadows. Distant, Point, and Spotlights produce ray-traced shadows with hard edges unless they are sized above 0. Area, Linear, NGon, Photometric and Spherical lights produce ray-traced shadows with physically accurate shadow edges that are hard near the object casting them and softer further away.
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