STRATA 3D CX ARCHITECTURAL RENDERINGS

How to Render Buildings with Soft Shadows

Effect Using Light Source from Spotlight.
1. Firstly, setup your Environment. Click Lights tab and setup as follows:

Ensure Environment Lights is ticked as Construction and Ambient is Enabled.

2. Next, setup Lightdome. Click Lightdome, select New > Horizon.

3. Name your custom Horizon. Select Blend rate: Fast

4. Click and setup every single colour for Overhead, Horizon, Horizon & Underfoot
with these settings:

Hue
Saturation
Brightness

Overhead
217
46
98

Horizon
36
9
89

Horizon
36
9
89

Your Custom Horizon settings will look something like this:

Underfoot
36
23
49

5. Next setup your light source for the render, which is the Spotlight. Create a new
Spotlight from which direction you want (Generally setup the spotlight the same
direction as your camera views)

Spotlight

i)
ii)
iii)

Spotlight Intensity should be around 50-60%

Fall-off set to : Linear
Click Colour and set HSB Slider to:

The spotlight should be roughly 500m to 1km away from your building and at roughly
150m to 250m heights (This setting basically to get the soft Evening Sun effect. You
can try your own setting if you want to get at different ambience)

6. Once you properly setup your camera and ready to render, click Render Image
and setup as follows:

i)
ii)
iii)

Renderer
: Radiosity
Texture detail : Fine
Oversampling : 9 per pixel

iv)

Click Expert, and setup as follows:

v)

Click Raytracing Settings, and setup as follows:

vi)

Save your render settings e.g: Custom Radiosity.

7. Now youre done and ready to render. Render your views and once its finished, it
should look something like this.. Enjoy!