5

Shadow Parameters in the Light Inspector
Shadows: This checkbox allows you to turn on Shadows controls. (When activated, the
checkbox is blue.) The Shadows checkbox allows you to set some lights to cast shadows,
and others not to cast shadows.
Selecting this checkbox causes the light to cast shadows on objects in front of it if the
objects also have shadow controls enabled. Deselecting it exempts the light from
generating shadows, regardless of settings of individual objects.
Opacity: This slider controls the apparent opacity of the shadow. Dragging the slider to
the left creates a lighter shadow.
Opacity set to 25%Opacity set to 75%
Softness: This slider determines how blurry a shadow will appear.
Note: The appearance of a shadow depends on the rendering quality of the object casting
it. Because a shadow may be larger than the original object, you may see some jagged
edges or aliasing on the shadow. If you see such artifacts, check how your image looks
when the project is set to best quality, rather than draft or normal. For more about Canvas
display quality, see Canvas View Options.
Uniform Softness: This checkbox lets you constrain the results of the softness slider to
a uniform amount of blur on the shadow regardless of distance between the light, the
object casting the shadow, and the object receiving the shadow.
By deselecting the checkbox, you enable nonuniform softness, where the farther the
objects are from each other, the more blur is applied.
1276 Chapter 21 3D Compositing