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[Hypure]

My next project involves a large environment with lots of pngs used as "cheats" for large objects-that are problematic- they don't cast shadows.  Another problem (that I also had in Worm hole) was with very complex objects like the robot I had to turn the shadow off, but everything else pretty much worked fine with shadows ON in the scene....  This got me thinking of a workaround, preferably I could use a second simplified object (like a stick figure) and parent it to the robot and set it to cast shadows FOR the robot, that is assuming that a hidden abject could cast shadows.... but it can't, nor can "clear" objects.   This could STILL work if everything was slightly smaller then the parent object thus remaining hidden...Yet i can't do that for the PNG objects.

Any ideas?

P.S. art simply crashes in the scene with all the PNG's.... When referring to lights volume is much quicker then ray traced, which I require with all that I need to do,  and I noticed it renders shadows more completely (such as logs inside a fireplace also casting instead of being skipped) then ray traced.   I will also probably end up doing allot of image sequence compositing when possible due to the complexity of scenes....don't know if that info helps.

[Hypure]

I was also pondering creating pngs to  simply lay flat as fake shadows.   That could look bad though on variable terrain areas.  I get the concept of baking textures but have not got into that.   I avoid uv mapping like the plague and have been looking into maybe purchasing a program to help me out with it, something in real time and under $100.

[Hypure]

I have been looking at curvy3d, it looks to compliment Anim8or nicely.

[Raxx]

Baking shadows generally isn't useful for non-static objects. In Anim8or, shapes with transparent materials cast shadows, so you can use simpler shapes (as separate objects from the original ones) with transparent materials as the shadow casters. This is probably your best choice if you're looking to speed up shadow rendering time. I keep saying this to people, but don't use ART if you're not making special use of the ART materials. If a scene doesn't need refractions or reflections, use Scanline. You have better control over shadows and faster rendering of shadows.

It's not a good idea to avoid uv mapping like the plague. Kreator made two tutorials on unwrapping models that you can look at. UVMapper, Roadkill

I use 3D-Coat for unwrapping models and sculpting. If you want sculpting software, try Sculptris first since it's free. You can use Roadkill as a free alternative to unwrapping. You can use XNormal to bake normal maps and ambient occlusion maps (among other things) onto textures.

I don't have much to say about Curvy 3D. Try it and see if you like it.

[Hypure]

Thanks Raxx for the inspiration, I'll take your advise and look at those uv tools you mentioned.  Ill also play around with some transparent stuff, I remember that now that you mention it when making windows for my house and not getting light to pass through by simply using transparency.... 

[Hypure]

I was looking at sculptress earlier and I assumed it was part of Zbrush... Thanks.

[cooldude234]

I was looking at sculptress earlier and I assumed it was part of Zbrush... Thanks.

Its by the same people. It's just a simpler 'dumb'd down' version of zbrush that they made free.

[Hypure]

I did use uvunwrap and did a couple of things like the vehicles in worm hole but I think that was the only thing.   I did check out 3dcoat today and I think that is something i would like, the UV tools in that are very impressive.