Wrong Shadows

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    • Official Post

    Hey EGIE , what you're seeing is called "light leaking". You can resolve this by increasing the thickness of the windowsill, and in case that doesn't help already, please try to reduce your scene to only what is necessary for your renderings, as this issue may also be present in larger project files.


    You may want to use Section Planes for example, to cut off any large planes/buildings/objects which may be present around your scene. :)


    Please let me know if these steps do not resolve this behaviour.

  • Thanks!

    hmm - hardly practicable suggestions - a thicker windowsill would be wrong etc. I also rendered an animation through a large area with terrain and other buildings, so the section method fails as well.

    I notice the light leaks in many renderings - are you working on this issue?

    • Official Post

    EGIE , please also try out our latest preview - we've decreased the occurrence of light leaking which was sometimes more present in previous versions. We are currently busy with improving this behaviour even further.


    To install our latest preview:


    -> Head into the about window by clicking the About button -> Click Visit download area -> Click on the hyperlink right in the first sentence below our Download button -> Now that you're on our preview page, just click Download -> You now have our latest preview which you can simply install, as it will overwrite your existing (latest) release.

  • installed newest Preview today

    Shadow glitch seems to get worse and worse X/ (sent a feedback )

    In addition to the incomplete and/or incorrect shadow calculation now somehow dirty artifacts are added to them,
    which makes the shadows appear even worse.

    hmm - unfortunately still far away from producing only one usable result with Enscape so far ...

    • Official Post

    Hey EGIE , thanks a lot for your further message.


    I'm sorry to hear you're not satisfied with the shadows Enscape is providing, but they shouldn't have gotten worse compared to our latest release. Would you mind sending us a comparison screenshot between the release and preview, just to make sure we're not missing anything? :)


    Furthermore, the shadows seen in the latest screenshot you've posted are showing usual behaviors and limitations of the real-time technique "shadow mapping" which we're using. Real-time shadows in general are something we'll constantly improve with time, and, for example, shadows which become a bit pixelated (when you zoom in) appear like this by design, also due to performance reasons.


    Finally, regarding the light leaking we've talked about before in this thread, increasing the thickness of the windowsill, maybe by just a margin, should help.

  • Hi and thank you very much for your answer and help which I appreciate very much! :thumbup:


    Let me grab three things first:

    1. I think it is undisputable, that the results achieved so far are qualitatively far from usable or presentable.
    2. Also undisputable is, that it is the wrong turn to model something so that the renderer can work reasonably. - The opposite must be true!!!
    3. Nobody can be satisfied with the shadows Enscape provides - at least if they are as bad as in my renderings ;)


    Most of us work in the architecture business. This means that we work with real conditions. So we also refer to real plans and models in the visualization. It would be nonsense to do the work a second time and even wrong "only" for the rendering. We have neither time nor get money for that.

    So if Enscape´s priority is on fast multimedia capability (VR etc.) instead of quality, that's ok and I like it even. For rendered single images, however, a better scale must be possible with any switchable "Top Quality Mode" then for example. Because Enscape is so fast, it doesn't matter if a single image renders 5 minutes instead of 15 seconds. This waiting time is nothing against the time and money we burn in the hope of finally getting a presentable result. Please consider - our customers pay money only for an ordered good and usable rendering, but never for a significant lack of quality because of real-time technique "shadow mapping".


    - attached an excerpt of a current work supplemented by some remarks (here rendered with the current version 2.4.2.4-g82727a0)

    - the test render just above was rendered with preview version 2.4.1.1180-g23fa96b

  • EGIE, I can understand your anger, I'm an architect too so I completely understand.


    That said, I really never encountered any of the issues you're reporting, so something makes me think there's something wrong in your model.

    Could you share it only for testing purpouses? I'm really curious to know if on another machine it could render out somehow differently...

  • Does the Atmosphere, Sky Orbs, shadow sharpness setting have any effect?

    The same question like Micha asks 8o:?: I also have no idea how to manipulate shadows. =O

    And one more question: Am I the only one here who has this problem or have you had similar experiences?


    Anyway, I have just rerendered both daylight scenarios again, SkUp-Sun and HDRI lighting, and both methods lead to the same useless bad result.

    Just as an information - I have played on at least 6 computers by now (all machines that are only used for render tasks) and on all machines the result is the same bad and only in connection with Enscape.


    The included "fresh" renders took about 6 seconds at maximum quality - how I would love to wait 10 minutes each for reasonable shadows !!!! ;);):P


    Best

  • Thanks XXL for pointing on your "shadow discovery", haven't noticed it either so far :)
    I have tried this setting option with maximum and minimum and again both tests are unsuccessful (to be honest, I do not recognize what this shadows sharp controller does or changes except some somehow "dirty" streaks ;) (screenshots below)).


    @ Pibuz: Thanks for your testing offer. I am so curious what you will achieve :thumbsup:

  • ... so something makes me think there's something wrong in your model...

    Thank you again Pibuz for your guess regarding my potentially flawed model features :thumbup: after all, I have this trouble in all models so far;)

    Since I have been working on the visu theme for ages, I have long experience and have never had any difficulties, not with a single tool so far.
    So maybe I got used to processes that are not unconditional right, just because they haven't caused trouble so far. So thanks again for your help, above all a lot of success and I am happy to accept any suggestions for improvements :):)<3

  • I can reproduce the problem. It seems the further the sill is away the from camera the more pronounced the problem seems to be.

    For me increasing shadow sharpness improves it, but doesn't solve it.


    If you increase thickness to 50 cm it starts to improve, this is 75cm.


    Only black plaster can solve your problem ;(

  • This is a Sketchup thread Micha;)

    Thanks a lot for your testing XXL (a coool name btw ;)) yes exactly, the further away, the worse it is || hmm, buildings usually have windows and as a rule theese have window sills - but I can't publish them rendered like this ...
    Did you noticed any mistakes in the model itself?