Edge Shadow

 
 
 

Category: mental ray > Shadow

Shader Family: Surface Material

Output: Color

Bump mapping is a powerful tool for suggesting geometric detail when such detail would be impractical as actual geometry. Unfortunately, two situations in particular cause a bump mapped surface to look fake: when the profile edge of the surface looks too smooth, and when shadows falling on the surface look too smooth.

The Lume Edge shader remedies the first of these problems by roughening or blurring an object's profile edge. The Lume Edge Shadow shader remedies the second problem by roughening the edges of shadows falling onto the object.

The Edge Shadow shader works by making the object's shadow transparent at its profile edges. You can control how much of the edge should become transparent, how blurry the edge should be, what kind of noise affects the edge, and how the surface color affects the edge.

To roughen the edges of shadows, Edge Shadow employs the same algorithm and parameters as Edge.