I have a scene that I have been working on and I was planning to render it
four times from the center of the scene, once in each direction (NSEW). A
key element of the pictures are ancient columns and stones with heavy normal
effects like bumps to make them look weather worn. With a primary light
source as the sun up in the distant eastern sky the scene looks great
looking west (with the light). However, when I render a scene looking east
(with the shadows facing toward me) I cannot get it to look right. I have
tried several lighting methods to allow me to see details in the picture (by
details I mean bumps and other normal effects)  in the shadows of the sun
(light at the camera location, shadowless lights, and ambient) without
adding any additional shadows (for realism, when looking from picture to
picture there should be no additional shadows on the road and the shadow
angles should remain consistant).

Problem, no matter how I try to do this on objects with normal bumps or
other normal textures the effect seems to be nulled out (smooth). I can make
it look great by moving the primary light source but then the shadows move.
So I guess that my question is how can I look onto the shadow portion of an
object and see all of the normal components without creating additional
shadows onto the scene?

Any ideas?

Kirk

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