Shadow Quality in Ray Traced Studio

[bertiewoo]

Hi, I'm trying to do some product renderings in Ray Traced Studio in NX10, but I'm having trouble achieving realistic shadows.

In the past I've used the Blender Cycles render which uses full global illumination and produces realistic shadows calculated using all geometry in the scene (as in the first attached image).

I cannot determine how to setup the NX Ray Traced Studio render to achieve a similar effect. The shadows, especially on inside edges, do not fall off realistically. It's almost as if the render light paths are not using enough "bounces" or if the shadows are somehow being blurred. Also the NX Ray Traced Studio renders do not have the characteristic "speckled" appearance created by light paths in global illumination.

Does anyone have any ideas? Is global illumination somehow not turned on?

Blender Cycles Render (realistic shadows)

NX Ray Traced Studio Render (shadows on inside edges do not fall off, unrealistic)

 

[Toost]

I'm having difficulties understanding what it is you are missing,
Can you illustrate what you mean when you say "inside edges"?
also "characteristic "speckled" appearance" ?
Highlight on the image where you say it's wrong.

Regards,
Tomas

 

[bertiewoo]

Hi Toost, the "falloff on inside edges" I'm speaking of is a fairly subtle effect, I'm just worried its absence indicates NX has global illumination turned off somehow.

Here are 3 shots illustrating the falloff.

Blender Cycles: Shows a subtle darkening around the base of the flange, as well as a well defined shadow cast by the flange. Also the rib support in the upper left has clear shadows in the 45 degree cutaway section.

NX Ray Traced Studio: The flange seems to be floating in space, and casts only a very blurry shadow. The lighting setup in NX is "Studio II" which should have more contrast than the lighting setup in blender (a light emitting sphere which surrounds the scene), but the shadows are somehow less defined. There is no darkening in the rib support 45 degree cutaway.

NX Advanced Studio: The inner edges here have a clear falloff created by an ambient occlusion effect, but they are imprecise and not natural looking.

Does that make sense? I've used global illumination in other software (Cinema 4D) and it produces results similar to the 1st Blender Cycles example. Some of the screenshots of NX Ray Traced Studio renders appear to produce similar results to the Blender Cycles render, so I think there must be some setting I don't have enabled.

Thanks!

 

[bertiewoo]

After calling GTAC I've discovered that in addition to the renders "True Shading", "Advanced Studio", "Ray Traced Studio", there is also "High Quality Image". None of these have been able to produce the render accuracy I am looking for, but I believe it is possible based on images on the NX website such as this:

Does anyone familiar with rendering images in NX know which render produces the best results, or know the history / relationships between these similar features? The type of rendering I'm referring to is called "Diffuse Inter-reflection"