Pixel Bunneh

Here’s a quick look at one easy way to create realistic shadow effects in your textures. I’m using Daz Studio (free download here).

I’m starting with two simple primitives in Daz to demonstrate how you can get great shadows by using the built in 3Delight raytracing, and saving your render to tweak for use in Second Life. 

Two simple primitives

You’ll need to add at least one light to your scene, I’ve added a Distant Light and applied it in the Active Viewport.  In the picture below, the red circle is around my light.  It’s likely that you’ll want to move the light around to get whatever shadow angle you’re trying to attain. 

Adding a light

Make sure to turn your light on, in the parameters.  You can also change the shadow settings there, softness and bias, color and intensity. 

Light Parameters

Other than turning my light onto Deep Shadow Map, I’m leaving the rest of the settings at default for now.  I’ll go ahead and render it, to see where I need to move my light and what other settings I might want to change.

First render

Not exactly what I had in mind, so I’ll move my light a bit, soften it, add some bias,  and render it again to see if that gets me closer.

Second render

Much better!

What can you do with this you ask?  This is a wonderful method of creating window or door textures, like so:

Daz rendered window with shadows

This is an eight piece object with textures applied, then rendered in Daz Studio.  The render is taken into Photoshop or GIMP and trimmed for use as a texture.  See how the shadows are taken care of for me?