[Tim Vining]

Got it–thanks! That’s very helpful.

[Tim Vining]

Okay, thanks.

So, followup question–can Area shadows be made to be softer?

[Tim Vining]

Sorry, found it–looks like you have to turn off editing on multiple values in the interface to totally “lock” the curve.

[Tim Vining]

That did it–thanks! I put the greyscale above the image, and I used Stencil Luma Blend Mode, since I wanted to use the lights/darks for opacity. You are a life saver!

[Tim Vining]

Okay, thanks! (Unfortunately, I do have a lot of hair in this scene, but I’ll give this a try!)

[Tim Vining]

Okay, thanks! Do you know if caching and then rendering is supposed to be faster overall than just rendering, or is it the same, since you’re still calculating then rendering?

[Tim Vining]

Thanks–will do!

[Tim Vining]

Thanks. Brian! That helped a little in some parts, but unfortunately seemed to make it worse in the most active part of the animation. In the meantime, another forum suggested increasing the number of steps in Dynamics > Advanced, and that seems to have pretty much fixed it. Reading up on it, I guess the idea is that it runs more calculations for more accuracy. Takes longer, but seems to to do it.

[Tim Vining]

Thanks, Rafael. I’ll give that a try. Is there a recommended audio compression setting you would recommend?

–Tim