Help! I'm getting the shadow map error even without shadows

Hera

Hello!

After upgrading to 4.8 I keep getting those render errors you earlier got when you used shadow maps. now I get them all the time, no matter what kind of shadow I use - or none at all. Not even using simply the default light helps, I'm still getting them. So now I don't know what to do. (Save for reversing to 4.7)

First picture shows part of the render and then there are two pictures showing the render settings. I wonder if there's something I might do with these that might fix this.

Richard Haseltine

What lights are you using?

Hera

In that example I'm using just a distant light and a spotlight. Nothing fancy. (I deleted 2 other spotlights and 3 pointlights earlier to see if it helped or not)

Richard Haseltine

Please go to Window>Panes(Tabs)>ScriptIDE. Copy and paste the contents of the box below into that pane and click the Execute button at top-right.

// Check for lights with DSMs
// (c) Richard Haseltine, June 2015

var lights = Scene.getLightList();
var shadowCntrl;
DSMs = [];
for ( var n = 0 ; n < lights.length ; n++ ) {
 shadowCntrl = lights[ n ].findPropertyByLabel( "Shadow Type" );
 if ( shadowCntrl ) {
  if ( shadowCntrl.getValue() == 1 ) {
   DSMs.push ( lights[ n ].getLabel() );
  }
 }
}
if ( DSMs.length > 0 ) {
 var list = "Lights with DSMs:";
 for ( n = 0 ; n < DSMs.length ; n++ ) {
  list = list + "\n" + DSMs[ n ];
 }
 MessageBox.information( list , "Shadow Checker" , "&OK;" );
}

Does an alert box pop up listing one or more lights?

Hera

No nothing of that kind - no message boxes.

Hera

Somehow solved - I lowered the Max Ray Trace Depth to 2 and then the "thingies" were gone. This saved the present work.

But how do I do if I'm going to need more traces some day in the future? For instance if I am to work with glass objects or water?

mark128

I am not an expert on this, but your render settings seem unusual to me. You have the Shading rate set to 0.01. I usually use 0.2 for most renders and 0.1 for high quality renders. adamr001's insane quality render profile only had this at 0.05. On the other hand you have the Pixel Samples X/Y at the default value of 4. I usually have this at 8 or 12.

Perhaps it is a combination of the very small shading rate with the default pixel samples X/Y that caused this. I would try looking at adamr001 settings. I usually use something like his High Quality or Very High Quality settings.

Hera

mark128 said:

I am not an expert on this, but your render settings seem unusual to me. You have the Shading rate set to 0.01. I usually use 0.2 for most renders and 0.1 for high quality renders. adamr001's insane quality render profile only had this at 0.05. On the other hand you have the Pixel Samples X/Y at the default value of 4. I usually have this at 8 or 12.

Perhaps it is a combination of the very small shading rate with the default pixel samples X/Y that caused this. I would try looking at adamr001 settings. I usually use something like his High Quality or Very High Quality settings.

That might very well be the case, thanks. I usually have the one at 0.1 too, perhaps I made a typo and got an extra zero this time. I'll give it a test run and see what's happening.