robcat2075

OK, I see... On the Sun light set "Width" to 0 and "Darkness" to 100 This will make the light and its shadows more Sun-like. After you do that you may want to re-balance your light and global ambiance intensities. Setting darkness to less than 100 is something typically done when AO/Global Ambiance is not being used. It simulates ambient light by lightening shadows but when you use it with AO/Global Ambiance it makes the shadows so light you can't see them. It also create unnatural illumination in enclosed spaces like the garages. Setting the Width greater than 0 causes a different AO/Global Ambiance approximation where a shadows get lighter the farther they are from the object that casts them. The greater the Width, the faster they fade. If they fade too soon they may never reach the object the shadow is supposed to be seen on.

Something is set wrong. There should not be that much light inside the garage. Can you show a screen cap of all the properties of the light ? Another suggestion... make the roof overhang the triangle sides of the house. You want the shadow that will cast.

It looks like a 3D scroll... But it's really just a low-relief sculpture! This is the "reverse" of the award medal, where the winner's name will be laser-zapped. It took me a long time to wrap my mind around how to make that 2D design work in splines but now it think I've got it. Still need to find a better font for the text.

Are you sure shadows and AO were on in that render? They should be exceedingly obvious in a shot like that. For example the inside of the garage should be quite dark but it's got sun light in it.

It's the old hidden-workspace-trick!

Did this problem get solved? I'm not quite sure the initial question was really about.

If you can show a wireframe there may be simplifications possible.

40MB is indeed ... yuuuuge!

extra... I'll suggest that since your adding the Ambiant light, set the Sun width to zero so it doesn't decay its shadows.

That's the idea. You can play with the balance between the two sources for all sorts of nuances.

Yup, it looks like the swarm container has accidentally acquired some properties of a light.

Briefly... in the properties of the Chor... -turn Global Ambiance Type to "Global Color" -Choose a Ambience color. Anywhere from slightly blue for Noon to reddish orange for sunset -Ambiance Intensity is something you have to balance against the Sun light Intensity in your chor. For noon day sun try 25% Ambiance intensity and 75% Sun Light intensity. It's OK to have the two add to more than 100% but if both are 100% you will get over blown whites. For times near sunrise/sunset the proportion of Ambiance to direct light would be greater. -Set Ambiance Occlusion to 100% When you go to render set Render To File Settings>Ambiance Occlusion to ON and... Occlusion Sampling to the lowest number that gets you acceptable shadow quality. Start with 10%. Leave Transparent AO OFF unless you need transparent surfaces in your scene.

I think something is wrong with flocking in general. It should be possible to produce something other than this very jittery motion that always seems to end up collecting in the center, but the settings don't seem to offer much alternative.

That's odd. I tried the PRJ. The only lights should be the ones in the aliens", right? Even if you change the "population" down to zero that light is still there. It's as if the "swarm" is a light itself.

What you want is one Sun light for the single light source. The additional light of the surrounding blue sky (if that is desired) is done with Global Ambience and AO. If the exact angle of the sun is important, we don't have a specific wizard for that but it is easy to do... 1) Delete or set Active OFF on all lights except one Sun light (called "Key" in default chors) 3) Google your coordinates. "London, England coordinates" gets me 51.5072° N, 0.1275° W. You can round those off to the nearest degree. 2) Go to Sun or Moon Altitude/Azimuth Table. Plug in your location and it will create a table like this Astronomical Applications Dept. U.S. Naval Observatory Washington, DC 20392-5420 LONDON o , o , 0 00, N52 00 Altitude and Azimuth of the Sun Feb 5, 2016 Universal Time Altitude Azimuth (E of N) h m o o 07:00 -5.7 108.908:00 2.9 120.609:00 10.1 133.010:00 16.1 146.511:00 20.2 161.112:00 22.0 176.413:00 21.3 191.9 14:00 18.3 206.9 15:00 13.2 220.9 16:00 6.4 233.8 17:00 -1.6 245.8 18:00 -10.4 257.4 4) We are going to presume that in A:M, when you are looking at the Chor from the overhead view, that North is at the top of the screen and East is to the right. This is normal map convention. 5) In the Chor, in the properties for the Sun light, set Transform>Rotate to 0, 0, 0 and set Options>Cast Shadows to ON 6) Choose a time from the table. Lets say 3PM or 15:00... "Altitude" is the sun's angle above the horizon... 21° "Azimuth" is the Sun's angle from straight North... 221° 7) The table presents angles from the observer's point of view while A:M needs angles from the Sun light's point of view, but we can still make them work. Enter the Azimuth, 221°, into the Sun light's Transform,Rotate> Y value as a negative number... -221°. (A:M will display that as 139°, which is the same as -221°) Enter the Altitude as is into the Transform>Rotate>X value... 21° Always do the two values in that order, and always zero them out to 0, 0, 0 before you change them. 8) the placement of the Sun light in the chor doesn't matter. It creates an infinitely wide set of parallel light rays from an infinitely distant source, like the distant Sun. 9) Set the Sun light's Intensity and Shadow darkness to taste. Color will vary from slightly yellow, almost white at Noon, to a reddish orange at Sunset. Leave "rays" at 1 and A:M will imitate a slight fill at the far ends of the shadows. Rays greater than 1will create a penumbra effect on the shadows based on the Sun light's "width" setting" This will be a "rough approximation of daylight" without Global Ambience and AO, but if you need those, ask and we can go into that also.

That was amusing! I liked that!

Glad you're still alive!

I gotta p yesterday!

Now why doesn't you movie have the glow?

I'm glad you dropped in to ask instead of going away mad.

You're real close. There is also a drop down list on the "format" line.

This is odd. When I try your PRJ I get a glow but I can't find where glow is turned on.

Until I read "gasoline" I presumed it was an ad for canned black olives or something. Which would make just as much sense.

Cool, the Nighthawks can catch the train home!