Problems with Shadow Edges

All,

I am writing to request help in addressing the source of a problem within my rendering (see attached - troubleshoot.jpg). I have upper windows (typical rectangular windows) in this space which the sun is shining through. For some reason, when the shadows from the openings render, the shadow lines have a lot of static and are not a clean, crisp edge. I have attached a low resolution image demonstrating this. I realize that it may seem that this is due to the low resolution, low-pass image rendering, but I have rendered it on much higher settings and still experienced the same problem. I have been generating these low resolution images all day trying to adjust different settings to eliminate this problem to no avail. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what the culprit may be?

Thanks,

Michelle

Attachments:

troubleshoot.jpg, 158 KB

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Permalink Reply by Rich Hart on December 4, 2014 at 2:51pm

If the sky is on, light is sent from random points in the sky, with more random sky light source points added for each pass, so I would think the shadows from the sky should clean up after many passes, but you are saying that they never clean up.

Have you tried just using the sun and not using any illumination from the sky?

Also, can you post the model here so that we can try it? Just put it in a zip file and use the Upload Files button to attach it to a reply if you can.

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Permalink Reply by Michelle Armand on December 5, 2014 at 7:33am

Rich,

Thank you for your reply and help. I believe I have tried turning the sky off and rendering; however, I will try this approach again now. Following is a link where you can access the Sketchup file (it was too large to upload via this website. Please let me know if you have any trouble accessing it. Thank you again for your help in resolving this matter.

Sincerely,

Michelle

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/a9zft7mo9vz8p1v/AADW2LS_ZKX6BrfMghkytTHZ...

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Permalink Reply by Rich Hart on December 5, 2014 at 3:46pm

Since your model was taking too long for testing, I made a sample model to test this, with a coule of windows and a simple hole in the ceiling, and believe I have found that the Cloudiness setting for the sun is the culprit.

Below are 3 rendered images from that model. The top 2 are with a Cloudiness setting of 52. The first is just 24 passes, the 2nd is after thousands of passes.

The 3rd image is with the cloudiness setting set to 0.

See if turning off Cloudiness helps you with your problem.