Tim Nikias wrote:
> Well, for one, I'd just use transparency instead of filtering. Then, have
> you switched off shadowing for the smoke?

Thanks for the comment. Transmit make a little difference, but not much. 
Haven't tried without shadows yet because the self shadowing is part of 
what makes it look good.  I'll try that though, and if its significantly 
faster maybe I can do something else to fake the shadows...

> What I did in my "Highnoon" Short (1st Place last round on IRTC :-) was to
> use half-spheres, texture them, put them in a seperate lightgroup, have them
> cast no shadows, and face the camera. To get shadows on the objects, I
> textured another batch of half-spheres at the same locations, but facing the
> main lightsource.

Hadn't thought about lightgroups, something else to try... may help with 
the self shadowing.

> 
> It all depends on what kind of scene you have and the lighting/shadowing, so
> maybe using media inside of blobs would be even better than your current
> technique...

Heh heh, I started down this path thinking textures would be faster than 
media...  Been experimenting with it, but my knowledge of media is thin 
at best. I'm likely to spend more time figuring out the media than I 
save in render time :-/

RG

Post a reply to this message