To
produce realistic raytraced shadows for area lights
- Only available through raytracing.
Make sure to turn Raytracing on in the Render
Settings window for Maya software rendering, then turn
on Use Ray Trace Shadows in the
area light's Attribute Editor. The size
and orientation of the light controls the shadow color distribution.
NoteYou may have to increase
the number of sample rays to ensure high quality shadows. This can
be time- and processor-intensive.
Depth map shadows also
work, but you create shadows varying from hard to soft. Adjust the
filter size to control the uniform softness of the shadow.