Searching for indoor shadows

[Schatzi Timmerman]

I am attempting to do some indoor photography. I have tried the different lighting situations under the quick preference tab.

I have no real problems getting my shadow likes using the same situations outdoors. In fact, I sometimes have to pull back.

MY problem is getting shadows from indoor objects. This sample shows a cello and stool, myself, a bass guitar, paint stand and table. I want some shadowing behind them. PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE LADDER OR CURTAIN. THOSE SHADOWS ARE BUILT IN.

Am I missing a setting? Should I lose a setting? I've adjusted my prefs to close to ultra and am allowing Sun/Moon + Projectors, advance lighting and ambient occlusion (my lappy can handle the settings).

Any suggestions?

 

 

 

[Hunter Stern]

If you are using the object for photos, then clearly you don't need 'real' shadows (good try LL). I would suggest taking the object in question and putting them on a green screen back drop, taking a pic of them saved to your system.

Open up in Photoshop, Gimp, etc. and create a black and white composite mask of the object (the object should be black with a transparent background at this point).

upload saved object mask picture and apply to a prim, flatten and adjust the texture (opacticity/ transparency, scale etc.) of the masked object behind the object(s) to simulate the shadows on the floor. Plus, you can reduce the drop in frame rate from having advanced lighting turned off for the final pic (you could use the shadow option from Advanced lighting as a guide temporarily to see where to place the created shadow mask objects).

[Nova Convair]

If you want shadows you need lights. The sun or projector lights cast shadows. There are eep/windlight settings that will kill every lighting/shadows effectively though - so the setting needs to give shadows a chance.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

13 hours ago, Schatzi Timmerman said:

I am attempting to do some indoor photography. I have tried the different lighting situations under the quick preference tab.

I have no real problems getting my shadow likes using the same situations outdoors. In fact, I sometimes have to pull back.

MY problem is getting shadows from indoor objects. This sample shows a cello and stool, myself, a bass guitar, paint stand and table. I want some shadowing behind them. PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE LADDER OR CURTAIN. THOSE SHADOWS ARE BUILT IN.

Am I missing a setting? Should I lose a setting? I've adjusted my prefs to close to ultra and am allowing Sun/Moon + Projectors, advance lighting and ambient occlusion (my lappy can handle the settings).

Any suggestions?

 

 

 

What Nova says.

You can get indoor shadows from sunlight coming through a window, but you won't see it otherwise from EEP. That's because you'll get indoor lighting from ambient light, but the direct light from the sun is stopped by the walls of the room.

The answer is definitely to use projectors to cast the shadows where you want. And, of course, you can colour that light a tinge of orange (or red, or whatever) if you want to replicate sunlight at a particular time of day.

You can do what Hunter says -- I have on occasion created my own shadow prims for objects when I was having problems with EEP and projectors. But you'll want to blur the mask a little, probably. Another tip: if this is just for a single shot, you can import the shadow mask as a "local" texture, which means that it will disappear when you log off, but you don't need to pay the upload fee.

 

[Coffee Pancake]

[Schatzi Timmerman]

11 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

I'm assuming I can make that prim phantom and get the same effect?

I will try that, using the example numbers in the edit page,  you posted.

[Josephine Carissa]

Hello Schatzi,

@Orwar has a item that i think will help you:

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Furlgrimr-SOL-Professional-Photographers-Ambulatory-Lighting-Apparatus/16240366

he is kind to put it out for 0L

Kind Regards,

Josephine

[BiliEyelash]

You may run into an issue if you have built in shadows along with regular shadows, this can give you two shadows that overlap,

[Schatzi Timmerman]

6 hours ago, Josephine Carissa said:

Hello Schatzi,

@Orwar has a item that i think will help you:

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Furlgrimr-SOL-Professional-Photographers-Ambulatory-Lighting-Apparatus/16240366

he is kind to put it out for 0L

Kind Regards,

Josephine

I tried it and it worked well.

Sadly, I lost the "intensity" (?) box (the second box next to the chosen color). No idea what I did. Had it and had my shadows. Now they be gone 😯 and can't get it back. I've removed the prim and replaced with a fresh one, still no luck.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Schatzi Timmerman

[Charalyne Blackwood]

2 hours ago, Schatzi Timmerman said:

I tried it and it worked well.

Sadly, I lost the "intensity" (?) box (the second box next to the chosen color). No idea what I did. Had it and had my shadows. Now they be gone 😯 and can't get it back. I've removed the prim and replaced with a fresh one, still no luck.

It's only available when your graphics are set to Ultra.

[Schatzi Timmerman]

46 minutes ago, Charalyne Blackwood said:

It's only available when your graphics are set to Ultra.

That explains that.

I dropped my levels to move some items around. Things tend to 'drag' when I get into ultra. Didn't think of kicking it back up.  Oh wells. I have the set still up and can try again later.

Learning new stuffs can be so much fun 😗

[Charalyne Blackwood]

16 minutes ago, Schatzi Timmerman said:

That explains that.

I dropped my levels to move some items around. Things tend to 'drag' when I get into ultra. Didn't think of kicking it back up.  Oh wells. I have the set still up and can try again later.

Learning new stuffs can be so much fun 😗

If you have land, or access to a skybox, your framerate will improve with altitude. Way less that the system to draw. Most of my pics on my Flickr were taken at my sky platform 1250 meters up

[Hunter Stern]

2 hours ago, Charalyne Blackwood said:

If you have land, or access to a skybox, your framerate will improve with altitude. Way less that the system to draw. Most of my pics on my Flickr were taken at my sky platform 1250 meters up

I just wanted to add, also after you log in or are at your photo set up, hold Ctrl+Alt+Shift and hit 3, 0, and - to eliminate things you don't need drawn in your scene (like Linden Tree, clouds, etc) i've even turned off ground and water when doing sky high photos  to give textures a better chance to rezz.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Hunter Stern

[Schatzi Timmerman]

7 hours ago, Charalyne Blackwood said:

It's only available when your graphics are set to Ultra.

I tried. Couldn't get the shadow density I was hoping for.

Ended up dragging everything outside and angling my Wetcat pose structure in an east/west configuration. Used a 'desert sunset' and tweaked the personal settings to bring the shadows into view and got what I envisioned in my mind.

Kudos to @Charalyne Blackwood @Hunter Stern @Orwar @Josephine Carissa @Coffee Pancake

[Coby Foden]

@Charalyne Blackwood @Schatzi Timmerman

There is no need for Ultra setting to be able to use projector lights. First just set "Quality and Speed" setting between "Low and Mid". Then enable one by one the settings:

• Atmospheric shaders
• Advanced Lighting Model
•Shadows
• Ambient Occlusion

.. in the order as shown above. Now the projector lights is available in the build menu.

Here is sample picture, Midnight just the local projector light on.
Adjusting the ambiance setting changes how strong the shadow looks. Ambiance at zero, the shadow looks the darkest.

[Orwar]

1 hour ago, Schatzi Timmerman said:

I tried. Couldn't get the shadow density I was hoping for.

   There are several factors at play when it comes to generating shadows*:

• If your projector is the only light source, the shadows will be in the highest contrast possible.
• If your projector is a part of a lighting setup using multiple light sources or the sun/moon (WL/EEP), the shadow intensity may lower depending on how much ambient light is present where the shadows fall.
• If you place your subject in front of a prim (for chromakey for example), and place a projector to make it so that the shadow of your subject falls on that prim, turning that prim 'full bright' will completely remove the shadow, as the entirety of that prim is 100% illuminated on its own (and shadows are, after all, the absence or reduction of light on a surface).
  *Thus, you don't actually 'generate shadows', when a scene is drawn and lit, it is the lighting which is generated, the shadows are places where lighting is limited or omitted.

   When I want to do really high-contrast shoots, or if I just want full control of the lighting setup at any given scene, I tend to use a variant of 'Phototools- No Light' for the sky setting (I made one that turns off the stars because occasionally those have slipped into my pics, which annoyed me). For the most part, I use at least 1 projector and 1-2 point lights, in a pretty standard 3-point-lighting setup. But, since light in SL doesn't bounce and refract off of multiple surfaces to create ambient lighting as in real life, I quite often end up adding more point lights to illuminate certain areas and angles of my subjects.

[Schatzi Timmerman]

One thing I have noticed is the 'density' of the light box in Coby Foden and Coffee Pancakes sample pics. They show a solid white while mine just has a circular image.

This pic was/is set in ultra and using a desert sunset for lighting. Yes, there is some shadow, but I feel with the lighting placement, there could(/should?) be a denser area.

Also with indoor photography, can it be done, muting the ambient lighting that comes with LL homes. Set everything to midnight and the indoors is still lit up like Fremont Street in Vegas.

 

Edited June 16, 2021 by Schatzi Timmerman

[Coby Foden]

59 minutes ago, Schatzi Timmerman said:

One thing I have noticed is the 'density' of the light box in Coby Foden and Coffee Pancakes sample pics. They show a solid white while mine just has a circular image.

This pic was/is set in ultra and using a desert sunset for lighting. Yes, there is some shadow, but I feel with the lighting placement, there could(/should?) be a denser area.

Also with indoor photography, can it be done, muting the ambient lighting that comes with LL homes. Set everything to midnight and the indoors is still lit up like Fremont Street in Vegas.

It seems that in the light setting window you are using an image which has round white center and black outside the center? To get a solid rectangular one just use a blank image instead.
To get rid of all ambient light use for the "Sky" --> "Phototools- No Light" setting. Then there will be only your local lights lighting the scene.

PS. The ambient lighting does not come with Linden homes. The ambient light is a feature of EEP.  And it can be turned off using the right EEP setting (as above said for example).

[Orwar]

19 minutes ago, Schatzi Timmerman said:

One thing I have noticed is the 'density' of the light box in Coby Foden and Coffee Pancakes sample pics. They show a solid white while mine just has a circular image.

   You can change the texture, the image is being 'projected', I choose a circle as that's what most spotlights are shaped like - you can get creative with projecting all sorts of shapes or even images as light.

19 minutes ago, Schatzi Timmerman said:

This pic was/is set in ultra and using a desert sunset for lighting. Yes, there is some shadow, but I feel with the lighting placement, there could(/should?) be a denser area.

   You can achieve different shadow direction and, to some extent, intensity, by moving the projector. The closer the light is, the shorter the shadow and the higher the contrast, and the further away it is, the longer the shadow and the lower the contrast (due to the falloff - which you can also reduce).

21 minutes ago, Schatzi Timmerman said:

Also with indoor photography, can it be done, muting the ambient lighting that comes with LL homes. Set everything to midnight and the indoors is still lit up like Fremont Street in Vegas.

   Midnight still has a lot of ambient light, as well as a colour (blue). You can open the lighting controls to adjust the gamma and the tone.