Texture Baking question

Hello all I am really curios I have seen a lot of new buildings that have some awesome baked shadow, but no the regular shadow effect that is a simple square or circle, etc, I mean the the ones that have the shape of the objet like shadow that a window cast or the furniture shadow then the light hit them, but what really call my attention is that all this shadows are one texture and are not in separed prims, can some tell me how they that I really want to learn how to do it.

I'm sure there are many ways to do it, but I would simply draw the shadows on a separate layer in Photoshop as I was creating the basic texture. I could make them as complex as I wanted that way, matching color and texture to whatever the shadow wa cast on, etc.

I use several different methods for this.

For some things, I create the wall, window, or whatever in a seperate 3D rendering application, like DAZ|Studio, and light it and render it there, so it casts actual shadows based on the 3D shape.

For other things, I do a layer in my Photoshop file and "hand paint" the shadows, judgig from experience and a certain artistic sense where to place the shadows, and how to do them.

For other things, I start from photographs that I have taken of real walls, windows, etc, and use the actual shadows in the photo.

There is also a lot to be said for not trying to add baked in shadows at all. After all, a baked in shadow only accuretely represents one set of lighting conditions, and looks wrong at night, ro at drasticly different times of day. And eventually SL will be getting "real" shadows. The beta right now for that only works on Windows, and only on certain high-end video cards, but it will come to all of us eventually. And at that point, textures with shadows would only be useful for locked-in lighting situations, like indoor lighting. (Still a long way off, but good to plan for.)

Some of the build that use those shadows look awefully stupid at night ..or a better way to put it.. they only look good 6 times a day when the other surrounding items match the lighting scheme..haha

I'm betting there are quite a few people who always set their environment to midday, it's never dark in their SL

If so, they really lose. The lighting at midday is the harshest , least pleasing of the day. The global light comes from overhead. There is little distinction between one vertical surface and another, and everything appears more washed out at that time of day. If you try to create realistic shadows for those lighting conditions, they will need to be small and confined to the undersides of objects that are lit from straight above -- hardly worth the effort.

Rollig, I agree with you completely and that's what I usually bake my shadows for...so it has the least effect regardless of time of day but still adds a little something in realism. Over the past few years though I have talked to numerous people who just don't care whether it's night and prefer to be able to see everything albeit they love playing with the sunset settings when doing their portraits. And of course there are numerous rolepay and otherwise sims that have their lighting set to a particular time. I probably should have explained myself better when I responded to VonGklugelstein that there are reasons that lend themselves to baked shadows in certain situations.

Is there some sort of Tutorial on how to render textures in DAZ3D? or could you explain to me how you do yours?...lol

It's moonlight.

Sgoobzy - DAZ acutally owns an inworld island. I haven't looked at their tutorials there in a while, but they do have some. You might want to check it out by either searching for Daz Island in your Second Life viewer or http://slurl.com/secondlife/DAZ%20Island/147/140/31

Also, Daz has a great set of tutorials on their website. You might want to scan through them all, but I did notice http://www.daz3d.com/i/tutorial/tutorial?id=1790&_m=d and http://www.daz3d.com/i/tutorial/tutorial?id=1791&_m=d which is a two part tutorial on rendering in Daz using POV-Ray.

Hope that helps



Absolutely! For exploring SL, I personally use the windlight presets suggested by the designer from INSOLENCE. They provide a great, neutral, bright environment and keep the ugly shadows on my face to a minimum. I never wear a face light, because I can see myself quite nicely. But for portraits, I use a variety of settings, mostly from the presets Torley Linden produced. I think it's the best of both worlds. Oh, and for my loft, I chose one with lovely baked on shadows and sunlight. It always looks fantastic.