How to create soft or distinct shadows with Arnold Skydome lights in 3ds Max

Autodesk Support

Oct 8, 2023

Products and versions covered

Issue:

How to create soft or distinct shadows with Arnold Skydome lights in 3ds Max.

Solution:

Arnold has multiple ways to create Environmental lighting, with both soft and sharp shadows. 


Creating Soft Shadows

Soft shadows can be created in 3ds Max with Arnold in the following ways:
  • Creating an Arnold Skydome light.
  • Loading any Bitmap into the Rendering > Environment slot. This will create environmental lighting for the entire scene and produce soft shadows and overall fill light.
The following image depicts an Arnold Skydome light used with a surrounding Sphere object mapped with a 360-degree bitmap (Emission is set to 0.0 on the Sphere). The Sphere has an Arnold Properties modifier applied with Shadowing turned Off. Soft shadows will then appear under the teapot.

Arnold Skydome Light Only


Creating Sharp Shadows

Instead of using a Skydome light or Bitmap Environment, loading a Physical Sky or an Arnold Sky map into the Environment slot in the Environment and Effects window (NUM8) will produce sharp shadows in the scene, as shown in the following images:

Arnold Sun and Sky Map with Skydome Light
Arnold Sun and Sky Environment map with Skydome light and mapped Sphere (no Emission on Sphere). Crisp shadows appear under the teapot.

Arnold Sun and Sky Map with Skydome Light 2
Arnold Sun and Sky Environment map with Skydome light turned Off, but mapped Sphere texture set to 0.1 Emission to produce additional light. Crisp shadows appear under the teapot.

To explore these effects further, download the attached 3ds Max scene file and experiment with the Environment and Material settings as shown in the preceding images.

Products:

3ds Max;

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