Shadowcaster not casting any shadows

[xxdanbrowne]

I've tried this a bunch of times a bunch of different ways so there must be a step I'm missing but I'm just not getting any shadows cast using the shadowcaster.

Setup has a ground plane with a diffuse material with the following settings:
* transmission set to 1,1,1
* matte enabled - true
* path tracing kernel
* alpha shadows on
* alpha channel on
* keep environment off

So can somebody please tell me what the setting is that I'm missing because I just can't figure it out!!

[xxdanbrowne]

here is the second file - the object itself. the material file follows. Don't know how to upload more than one file at a time.

[xxdanbrowne]

here is the final file - the material file

[xxdanbrowne]

Anybody?

[kavorka]

is importance sampling turned on for your HDRI?

[xxdanbrowne]

I didn't initially have an HDR so I tried it with an HDR in the texture node and the background node and set importance sampling on and off for both scenarios.

It still doesn't work. So there is clearly an obvious step that others are following that hasn't been explicitly stated because I'm not getting it.

Likewise: I downloaded your scene "Shadow Test.ocs" and assigned the different materials but it still casts no shadow so I'm doing something wrong.

Could someone who has gotten it working please take a look at the files I have uploaded and tell me what I'm doing wrong?

[FooZe]

Hi Dan,

It looks like you have ticked "flip face normals" for the obj import which is messing things up (click the little spanner icon on the obj).
This is also why your emitter is having problems (it's shining into the sphere).

Thanks
Chris.

[xxdanbrowne]

Aha! That fixed it. Thanks Chris!

NOTE to those who have read this thread: Don't flip the normals on the import!!

[xxdanbrowne]

Also... I noticed the shadows were jet black so after playing with the settings I discovered that the opacity of the diffuse on the ground plane appears to control the softness of the shadow to an extent. So opacity=1 is jet black shadow and opacity=0.1 is soft gray shadow.

AND.... if you add a transmission node to the diffuse material of the groundplane you can change the color of the shadow..

Very cool stuff guys. Octane rocks.

[FooZe]

You will also notice that the diffuse color of the ground still matters too, because of the color 'bleeding'. Set it to red and shine a bright light on it and you will notice red bleeding onto the cylinder.

Thanks
Chris.