Arnold Skydome light doesn't create proper Matte Shadows in 3ds Max

Autodesk Support

Oct 8, 2023


Products and versions covered


Issue:

The Arnold Skydome light doesn't create proper Matte Shadows in 3ds Max when using the Arnold Standard Surface material and the Shadow_Matte map type. Changing the Color values in the light has no effect.

Causes:

The Arnold Skydome light requires the Texture setting to be checked to render Shadow_Matte shadows correctly.

Solution:

To ensure that the Arnold Skydome light creates proper shadows with a Shadow_Matte material, do the following:

Set up the Shadow_Matte material in Arnold

Follow the instructions in this Arnold tutorial to set up the Shadow_Matte material for use in the scene.

Change the Skydome light from Color to Texture

  1. In 3ds Max, select the Arnold Skydome light and scroll down to the Color/Intensity section.
  2. Change the default Color settings to the Texture setting.
  3. Click on the Texture load button, then from the Material/Map Browser, load either an OSL: HDRI map, a standard Bitmap image, or a Gradient map. (This enables you to use simple color settings instead of a specific bitmap image for illumination.)
Skydome Light Settings
 
  1. Drag the loaded map type into either the Compact or Slate Material Editor as an Instance, then adjust the map's Exposure settings, Environmental coordinates (usually Spherical) and other attributes to produce the desired lighting effect.
Skydome Render 1
Example scene showing HDRI background and the same HDRI map used in the Skydome. (Exposure turned down greatly on the Environment background.)

Skydome 2
Foreground elements without HDRI background.

Skydome 3
Foreground elements showing Alpha channel only on ground plane with Matte/Shadow map applied.

Note: the examples in the preceding images were rendered from the attached 3ds Max 2021 scene file. Please refer to this scene for help in setting up this effect.

Products:

3ds Max; Arnold;


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