So I have a planet to render, but....

DrowElfMorwen

...this planet I want to render and be part of my picture is from the point of view of it's moon. How do I render this sphere without

a) having it cast a shadow (the option seems to be totally missing under its parameters, so did this move in the most recent versions of DAZ? Because several times I have wanted objects not to cast shadows and the option just isn't there like it used to be).

b) having it not look reflective at all. I am using Iray and I put the Iray Uber Base shader on it but the white areas on the planet are just TOO white and the nice deetails are completely washed out. I have tried other shaders, and modifying the Uber Base one, but haven't stumbled onto a solution.

Thanks for any help. :)

Richard Haseltine

If you are using Iray you can't turn shadows off. You could educe the shadow siz by enlarging your sun - in the Light's Geometry settings - or by careful positioning. How are youscaling the scene, and how plausible are your sizes and separations? A relatively large moon close-to is going to cast a big shadow from many angles.

Scale may also be affecting your planet - if it has an atmosphere you may want to use nested spheres rather than just one, and you probably want a fairly high roughness for much of it. Also make sure that the white areas aren't - even snow and ice are a bit grey in reality.

DrowElfMorwen

I did turn it off-white, somewhat blue-grey, in the diffuse setting. Hmm well I guess I will just have to render the planet seperate from everything else :( I'm hoping, for example, to stick it in the background in a sunset scene, but make it look like it's far off... not sure how to acvhieve that, but I will try to figure it out.

Richard Haseltine

Make sure the glossiness colours or values aren't pure white too.