Shadow question???

hi everyone!

I'm trying desperatley to find an understandable tutorial how to bake shadows with an 3D object (in maya or better in blender), just like the famous ant from qarl linden...-> http://www.qarl.com/qLab/?p=49

unfortunately qarl assumes a good knowledge of script-using for his tutorial, which I dont have.... thats why I am begging for help!

how do I bake the shadows with the form?
are there any easier phrased tutorials for that?
is that only in maya possible? are there no tools for blender?

thank you a lot and I am looking forward to your answers!!

Hi Viola

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. Shadows will be out in a future (not to soon) release of Second Life so it's probably a bit pointless creating them.

hey pnc,
thanks for the interest!
I mean this http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Advanced_Sculptie_Exporter_From_Maya
it possible to take the light-settings and the shadow a form makes to sl - but I dont quite understand the tutorial, its very hardly described how to do this... I was hoping to find some answers here, and with this knowledge making my texture-creating easier!

In blender you could setup a set of lamps around your object (add -> lamp) , then texturize your object to your needs.

When you are finished, check your results with F12 (render current frame), possibly adjust your lamps for better shadowing effects...

At the end you can bake the whole light and material setting into your final texture (render -> bake render meshes -> full render) and so you got shadows baked into your textures.

well, it depends on what you exactly are making. in blender you should also use Domino's scripts, so that you allready get the UV-mapping for free...

hmmm... Maybe this is too compressed info ? Sounds like we should make another tutorial on texturing But if you have seen the machinimatrix-tutorial about texturing with multiple images, you are almost ready to go for shadow baking...

Hi Viola. The reason the tutorial doesn't say much is because Qarl's process doesn't require you to do much. He's automated the bake setup, and turned the whole thing into a couple of simple toggle switches, via his advanced sculpty exporter. When you run the script, the sculpty exporter dialog will pop up, and on it you'll see checkboxes for "Bake Surface Texture" and "Include Shadows". All you need to do is put lights in your scene, and the exporter will take care of the rest.

Qarl's system is good in that it's easy, but it's also bad in that it's not very powerful. It makes use of the Maya software renderer, which is far from ideal for texture baking. It's really only good for things that are unique to Maya, such as paint effects, Maya hair, Maya fur, etc. For just about everything else, you'd want to use Mental Ray or a good third party renderer. For baking, I highly recommend Turtle (illuminatelabs.com). It's the only renderer on the market specifically designed from the ground up for baking, and it does a fantastic job, with incredible simplicity for the user in comparison with the likes of Mental Ray.

But before you get to any of that, the really important question is how familiar are you with the ins and outs of 3D and the specific software package you're using? Before even think about baking, you need at the very least to learn the basics of lighting, and of creating materials/shaders. Have you gone through all the tutorials in the Maya help file yet? (And I do mean ALL of them.) If you haven't, stop what you're doing, and don't go any further until you have. It's crucial that you complete all the tutorials (in order), so you can develop the proper understanding of how Maya actually works.

There is no better way to learn Maya than the Help tutorials. That's always where I tell everyone to start. Once you've finished them, if you still need help with baking, come on back and ask for more answers. But not before then. Trust me, if you put the cart before the horse, you'll regret it later. Take a little time in the beginning to start off the right way, and you'll be fine.

Oh, and by the way, don't be thrown off by the fact that some of the tutorial subjects might not seem totally relevant to what you ultimately want to do. Believe me, they're all relevant. It might not seem so in the beginning, but they are. Don't skip anything. Do them all in order.

Chosen, I see a "shadow" 3rd-party client is in testing. Are real shadows, from LL, on their way? Do you have any insight on when they might arrive, and how creators should best handle them?

Thanks!

(sorry if this is a derail, but I think the OP's question has been answered)
.

@Gaia

thanks for the answer and the torus inworld, its what I'm looking for
I would love to contact you inworld for more if thats ok with you!

@Chosen
wow, thanks for the detailed and honest answer. its interesting to know what you say about the qarl scripts and their probably best uses. which leads me even more away from them... and you were right with your suggestion about maya - I only just switched from blender to maya and am not sure, if this was necessary. I had couple of reasons for the change, but still am glad when I can stick to blender... so I was just naivley hoping, that it could maybe be just two or three more klicks and the miracle is done! anyway, not that easy in the end... *surprise* thx!!

Yes, "real" shadows are on the way. How well implemented they'll be and how soon, I don't know.

As for how content creators will handle them, that's gonna be an interesting bridge to cross when we get to it. On the one hand, there's a compelling argument to continue to fake most of our shading with bakes, just like we do now, for the simple reason that probably not all video cards will be able to handle the real shadows.

But that begs the question, what happens when someone who CAN see the real shadows sees that the "real" lighting/shading scheme is radically different from the faux one? If it's all one or all the other, the illusion is maintained, even if it's 'incorrect'. But when it's both, it could potentially look all kinds of wrong. We'll all probably have to get pretty creative when the time comes, to make texturing schemes that work with both real shadows and faux shadows at the same time.

In an ideal world, the solution would be to have different versions of a build that will rez per-user, in accordance with what viewer/settings each user has. Some video games operate that way, with two or more included sets of geometry and textures, which are accessed appropriately, in accordance with the computer's capabilities, and the user's preferences. But that, of course, would mean doubling (or more) the work for content creators, and I doubt too many (non-professional) builders would want to do that.



Well, you weren't necessarily wrong to hope for that. That's pretty much what Qarl's advanced exporter is intended to do, make the bake setup just a couple of clicks. In that sense, it does its job perfectly well. Sculpt maps and baked textures are all exported at once, from a very simple interface.

The only problem with it is that the Maya software renderer isn't going to give you the highest quality results. It'll be OK, but not stunning. If you're alright with that, then by all means, use the three-clicks-and-you're-done process. There's nothing necessarily wrong with it.

Just bear in mind that those three clicks come only AFTER you've set up your scene with lights, materials, and everything else you need. There's absolutely no way to automate that. No renderer in the world can generate good textures from a badly lit scene, or from materials that don't exist, and that will be equally true whether you're using Blender, Maya, or anything else.

The shadows need to be mapped to the sculptie torus somehow. And this is done by use of the UV-map! Blender uses the UV-map "silently" in the background to create the correct shadow texture.

If you want to give your object a ready made texture, you are not lost. Just import the texture to blender. i assume it is allready mapped to the correct UV-map ?
If it is a simple projection (2D image, you can follow the machinimatrix tutorial)

http://blog.machinimatrix.org/2008/09/01/texturizing-with-multiple-images/

If you have already a correctly unwrapped texture, just import it to blender. In that case you don't need the "projectionmap" mentioned in the tutorial and you can directly proceed to the very last step (add the shadows):

You will need to mix your texture and the shadows. You can set up your light system in blender, until the shadowing is as you want it. I use F12 (render current frame) frequently in that phase. If you make all your lamps white, you should end with a grey scale shadowing. but you can use any lamp colors you want. If you follow the tutorial mentioned above, you will have to bake the final texture at the end. There the tutorial advices to bake "textures only". You would select "full render" to also get the shadows baked.

some tips:

0.) Install Domino Marama's scripts first. That makes your life sooo easy

1.) If you get "no image to bake to" while trying to full render, go to multires level 1,
or "apply multires". Then go to edit mode and select all vertices of your object.
Assuming, you already have created a new image in the UV-image editor,
make sure, you have it selected. Otherwise:

2.) Always create a "new image" in the UV-image editor first.
And of course you will probably want to make an image of better resolution,
so 512*512 pixel would probably be a good choice,
but it depends on how high resolution you need on your sculptie.

3.) If you don't take care about it, your texture will become
VERY low resolution independent of what image size you have choosen!.
To increase render-resolution, add a subsurf-modifier and select 2-3 render levels.
If you select more, you get even finer resolution,
but your computer will run quite a bit longer

i hope, that helps.
If you have any questions, ask

As a skybox/houses builder, I'm assuming that the ideal method of handling shadows is going to be:
-Setting walls & ceilings to give shadows
-Add a few primlights within the build

It's definitely going to be a big hurdle for some creators to get things right. Add shadows, and the insides of your house may become too dark. Add too many or too strong prim lights, and colors will start to wash.
Neither would be ideal, but well developed settings will definitely make things look better.

ooooohh
Shadows....oohhhhhh
How wonderful.
No seriously.
How wonderful to see shadows in SL...

I "thought" we used to have them 100 clients back?

or was that just basic shadows from AVs legs?
I cant recall..

There used to be a setting called "shadows", yes. But it didn't do much. If I remember correctly, it more accurately would have been called "shading" than "shadows". It added kind of a graded effect to the way light reflected off prim surfaces, making things look slightly more realistic than what the old software-based lighting model would do by default. We've since been through two generations of hardware-based lighting, both of which negate the need for that sort of thing.

What it didn't do was allow objects to block light from passing through them, which is what we're talking about here. The new shadows that are in the works do that. With them, the interior of your house could be dimmer than outside (unless you put lights inside), just like in the real world, since the roof would stop sunlight from coming straight in. The umbrella above your patio table could actually provide shade for your chairs. When your avatar walks down the street, you can see its body-shaped shadow walking along with it. Etc.

Take a look at this video for the idea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dLgZcoBsu0

Now, THAT's way cool. I guess I wasn't paying attention. I didn't realize that's where this was headed. That would be a great step forward. I can imagine, though, that there will be a transition period when clothing designers will go a little nuts trying to adjust. Right now, for example, we add gentle shadowing under the bust line. When "real" shadowing arrives, ours will be unnecessary and will probably be overkill. Same thing for architects who have been including shadows in textures to get a realistic effect under eaves and similar overhangs. Interesting......