Fyre Posted January 13, 2016 Share Posted January 13, 2016 (edited) Hi, I saw some volume renders with a reference to deep shadows. Is this just shadow maps? I was wondering if someome could explain what this means, or potentially suggest a way of speeding up shadows for volume rendering? Im currently using raytraced. Edited January 13, 2016 by Fyre Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fathom Posted January 13, 2016 Share Posted January 13, 2016 deep shadow maps are multi-sampled zdepth images with a compression scheme that tries to retain as much of the "volume" of samples as it can. so rather than having a simple single zdepth from your light for each pixel, you have multiple samples so can accumulate opacity as you travel along the ray. you can render them in mantra via the "deep output" tab in the mantra rop. select "deep shadow map" and it will generate a dsm (as well as your beauty) from the camera/light you specify in the rop. i don't think there's a way to automate the dsm creation to generate from lights on the fly, but i could be wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juraj Posted January 13, 2016 Share Posted January 13, 2016 So, If I understand correctly it can save rendering time if you have static volumes in your scene (camera can be animated)? Are you then able to change light's parameters (position probably not) without re-rendering deep shadow map? Juraj Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fathom Posted January 13, 2016 Share Posted January 13, 2016 yeah, as long as your light is still in the same position and is contained inside the view angle represented by the dsm, you should be able to re-use dsm's. you can also render with a proxy geo as your volume so you could get faster turn-around on your dsms. frankly, i haven't used them in a while. raytracing has been fine for me -- plus it works on env lights. oh, looks like "transparent shadows" will enable auto-generation of dsm's from the light. so that's nice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fyre Posted January 14, 2016 Author Share Posted January 14, 2016 Thanks very much for the info, really useful. Still a little confused as to the workflow "transparent shadows" says it will cause deep shadow maps to be used to be used when shadowing using depth map shadows, does this mean it will generate them also, or do they have to be pre generated? Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fathom Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 i believe it will autogenerate them if you select that option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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