Alright so I have a basic idea of how the shadows in zbrush work and rendering them, but I am curious as to how some of you achieve the effect of real photography. I have a background “white backdrop” but I cannot figure out how to project the shadow of my sculpture onto the backdrop layer, or am I going about it all wrong, I found this picture that represents exactly what I would like to achieve. Please, any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
You’re going to need to tweak the settings in the Light>Shadow menu. Make sure that ZMode is active. Increase the Length setting (probably to the maximum for something like you show in the image). Also remember that shadows will only render under a Best render with Render>Shadows turned on. They will not be cast onto anything with the FlatColor material.
Some other Light>Shadow settings to adjust:
- Uni controls the unified shadows feature. This helps your shadows look more realistic.
- Increase the number of Rays. More rays will prevent holes from appearing in the shadows, but will also increase render time.
- Decrease the Aperture. Any time you increase rays you need to lower aperture. High values result in very soft shadow edges. Low values result in crisply defined shadows.
According to the artist, that image was rendered in Vray.
Thanks so much guys.