The problems pretty obvious, the shadows look really chunky. Is a z depth (mid point) shadow from one light.

I tried increasing the shadow softness. But it looks like this is blurring the shadow.

Can anyone help?

Cheers

This is pretty normal - things like the view from your light and the size of your shadow map will affect how bad this looks with (apparently) no filtering at all. It's intended that you filter the shadow somewhat - you should be able to up your softness a bit and lose the ratty edges without making the whole thing blown out hazy. If you *can't*, that's usually an indication that the area of interest is too small in the view from your light - all the relevant depth info being stored in a tiny(pixel-wise) portion of the shadow map. Try to adjust this to get a better coverage of your area of interest.

I will also point out that I've run into trouble with the inherent filtering that comes with mantra shadmap calls - but usually only if it's zinged up too high. As memory serves you don't get control over the type of filter algorithm and it's box only - may be wrong on that and it's been a while since I've used the default houdini lights…

This is one of the disadvantages of shadmaps vs raytraced - managing this stuff. In return - more render speed.

Hope this helps a bit…

J.C.