OTOY Forums

I'd like to create a cloudy day lighting using Octane Daylight (on 3DS Max).

The scene is simple :
- a picture file for the baground
- a 3D building on a "shadow catcher plane
- an Octane Daylight system

I want to have a very cloudy lighting :
with very soft cast shadows (allmost none) because most of the light should come from all the directions (because of the clouds).

But even setting turbidity and sun size to the maximum, shadows remain to strong.

Anybody knows how to increase the indirect illumination of the scene to lower shadows?

Hi Fabrice,
you can change the Sky color to something more white to increase the indirect light. Another solution is to use a far powerful emitter to simulate the kind of sun that you want.
I have used a lot this technique in the past, when was not possible to mix hdri with sun.
ciao beppe

Thanks Beppe,
but when I put a daylight system in the scene it disables the skylight parameter (=BG's color in the "env and effect" windows).
And in the daylight system I can raise or low the sun's power but its cast shadows remain very dark,
I don't know how to add environment lighting in order lighten those cast shadows.
Fabrice

Fabrice, for $5.95 you can snag yourself one of many kickass (24EV, 16k) cloudy-day HDRIs at hdrihaven.com. You are far more likely to get the results you want from one of his cloudy HDRIs than the Octane Daylight system. And don't forget, you can plug gradients and even procedurals into Texture Environments..

Hi fabrice,
have you tried to increase sun size?
larger diameter, softer shadows.
Regards
Paride

Getting the right HDRi is only your first step, so lets assume you have the HDRi you need already and focus on the daylight system.

When you are using the daylight system, like paride4331 said, increasing the sun size will make softer shadows (just be aware that the sun will also increase in size and can look quite odd so keep the sun out of the camera, in my opinion).

To make the lighting fit more with the overcast, dim, look, you will want to play with the sky turbidity slider. Decreasing the Turbidity will make the light and shadows of you scene more contrast. So the light hitting objects will be brighter. When you increase it, the light and shadows do not contrast as much, which can help make your scene look over cast. I usually use this setting when making a cloudy scene or pollution filled environments.

Then, you will need to play with the sun and sky colors to match, which is all preference, depending on what you need in your scene.