Hi, I’ve a question about sun shadow control. I recently upgrade from artlantis 5 to artlanstis 7. In Artlantis 5, I could control the sun shadow from bright day light hard shadow to overcast day light soft shadow by controlling Sun and Sky power under heliodons. However in Artlantis 7, the sun shadow hardness is the same or change slightly regardless the Sun or Sky power control under heliodons.
Attached are two images render in 5.0 and 7.0.
For 5.0, the Sun is set at -70 and Sky is set at +25.
For 7.0, the Sun is set at -99 and Sky is set at +81.
To conclude my question. Is there any way to control shadow hardness in Artlandtis 7 under different sky condition. shadow darkness / softness / HDR control? From clear sky to overcast cloudy sky. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you.
I believe the only way to do what you are looking for is to use HDRI for lighting. Since Artlantis 6, when the change was made to the physical engine, you can no longer produce soft shadows any other way. A bit ironic as the new physical engine is supposed to be more accurate, but you can no longer get realistic lighting other than for bright sun conditions…
While HDRI is not a bad option, one of the strengths of Artlantis is the ability to use actual context photos for your background, which you can’t do if you use HDRI (well, you can if you make your own HDRI image, but I figure that would take me far longer than the actual rendering work in Artlantis…)
Since version 6 we are using a physical engine, this is why we have removed some of the heliodon controls.
It is difficult to see the difference in sun shadows in both images as the heliodon are not set to the same position.
Could you render an image in V5 and V7 with the same heliodon position, this way the shadows will be shown at the same position and we will be able to see the difference.
Also please name the images with the Artlantis version used to render it…
Does Abvent hope to eventually restore some of the lost controls, in some fashion, or is the current state of heliodon controls considered the final state? Thinking specifically about soft shadows, atmospheric effects, etc.
OK, I guess no answer is an answer - this is not something to look for anytime soon.
So, as a workaround, is there any way to use HDRI images for lighting only, and still use a background image for context? Right now I believe they are mutually exclusive.
Sorry I did not see your last post earlier…
No we will not change the heliodon settings.
and no it is not possible to have HDRI for lighting and another image for background… they are mutually exclusive. sorry…
I have used light planes as light source this can produce soft shadows and the softness can vary according to the size of the plane.
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Thanks for the idea. I will try it.
Thank you for the response. I would like to emphasize that I think Artlantis is a terrific program, enabling me to quickly create renders of my architectural models, and even more, allowing for site insertion into context photos. But it looks like if my context photo is not taken on a bright, sunny day, I’ll have to use light planes for the sun.
I have been using Artlantis since version 4, and upgrading immediately as each new version comes out. But since Version 6, I am not sure if I gained anything with the upgrades, and I do know I have lost some features. I have no wish to use another software, but I am thinking of just going back to Version 5…
I just upgraded from 5 to Atlantis 2019 because I had to do in order to transfer model form ArchiCad. And I agree with kgriffith. I can not understand why is there no more shade control and sun/sky color control as well! Now renderings are taking forever to do. Im very disappointed that i had upgrade Atlantis because you dont have any control over it. I had accomplished high level of producing rendering with quick and easy meaner and now it feels like a I am staring from beginning. Not helping at all.
So I decided to try out using light planes in lieu of a heliodon. Actually, I created a segmented light dome, with each segment a different material so I could assign separate shaders (neon glass) to each, and get a directional light. I selected a background photo with no direct sunlight, as an example of the lighting condition I wanted to replicate in Artlantis. The resulting images are attached (not intended to be ‹ final ›, just a comparison of lighting).
The « Comparison Heliodon » image is using the Artlantis heliodon, and trying to reduce the sun light settings as much as possible to replicate the lighting condition. It seems that the « Sun » adjustment doesn’t do that much to the lighting of the model. But the attached image is the best I could do.
The « Comparison Light Dome » image was prepared using the light dome described above. It took a bit of time to get the adjustments right, but the result is more consistent with the lighting conditions in the background image. So it works, though the process lacks the simplicity of most Artlantis workflows.
