3D won't render shadows...

[business-spice]

Hello, working on a kitchen remodel and when I go to 3D and render the final view and then right click and select "Show Shadows" normally it goes from the 1% up to 100% (taking 5 minutes or so) but it just goes right to saying "Done" even though it never renders any shadows. I am using version 8 and have never had this problem in any other render except this kitchen. I've tried it from numerous angles (to make sure I wasn't inside a cabinet looking through the door, etc.) and still to no avail. I have a lot of detail and textures but that has never stopped it before. I do not have raytrace to use so that's out of the question. Any idea on what could be causing this or how to fix it? Thanks.

[business-spice]

I just tried going into an adjoining dining room and did a final render then "show shadows" and it works fine in that room, it just happens to be the kitchen only.

Can it just be an overload of having thousands of surfaces and textures? Could I possibly have one corrupt library item that is throwing off the render?

[business-spice]

Hi, yeah ... me again ... just here talking to myself (haha) anyways, I just got done deleting everysingle object from the room. I then grabbed a dining room table and just placed it in the middle of the room. I tried rendering the shadows and it still wont do it. So for some reason the Chief Architect gods refuse me "shadow rendering" passage into that room. Has anyone ever had just one room not be able to render shadows? I just cannot figure it out. Alright, i'll be back in 5 minutes to post another question to myself.

Bye me, see ya soon.

[business-spice]

Screw you, cheap Walmart lighting!!!! Well, after deleting every single thing from the room, the only thing left were the original lights. I deleted all of them and put in new lights and a basic table in the middle. I did a final render and showed shadows and viola, I have shadows. I knew I shouldn't have bought the cheap Walmart lights, they never work!

Oh well, thanks to me for all my help. I feel like an idiot talking to myself, should have tried more things befor eposting like a madman. Thanks for reading, gonna go play freeze tag by myself now.

[business-spice]

Ok, now I'm really being an idiot for continuing to talk to myself.

However, in case anyone comes across this. I found out exactly the problem. I am not allowed to have more than 7 lights in that room. I had 10 in there to begin and turned off the ones behind the camera so the ones in front would light up. So even though I had 3 turned off, for some reason just having more than 7 wont allow me to render shadows. So remember this if anyone is ever running into this problem. Could just be a fluke or maybe everyone already knew this and I'm socially retarded .....

... can someone come and unfreeze me, I tagged myself and now I can't move.

[lbuttery]

LOL


thanks for the follow-up tho, it is important to learn all those little "gottcha" caveats, that can make a day real interesting.

Lew


BTW:

Your still frozen, until someone else has a DOH !!!
moment.

[alobartn]

I absolve you. Move now.

Also, with version 8 (sans povray which we keep trying to get you to buy), your camera must be in the same room as the lights or they won't work, unless you make certain walls have no room definition.

[cgirerd]

Hey, I've "talked" to myself in here before too - I think it can be kind of thereputic - and often I figure it out about as soon as I've just hit "submit"!

Christina

[business-spice]

alobartn, I knew that about the lighting only being displayed on the room you are in when you render into 3D. The funny thing is the maximum qty. of lights that can work in a room (something like 7, 8 or 9) all would come on and a few would not display on since I was over the amount of lights allowed in 1 room. So all the lights would come on and I could switch other lights on or off but having more than 7 lights total in the room did not allow me to render shadows in 3D. As soon as I took the number of lights down to seven, it would render shadows, with 8 lights it wouldn't work. Don't understand why, but that's the case.

[lbuttery]

If I remember correctly, those limits and behaviors are a function of the video card and not Chief or POV ?

Lew