Shadow Q
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Strange
If you edit your green color and change any value - say red by 1 and then back as it was it nudges the material into making shadows...
You didn't used to have a png image as a texture that you have deleted - png's [sometimes] don't cast shadows ?
Anyway it is fixable - simply adjust one of the RGB values and set it back again and that material then behaves properly casting shadows...
Very weird -
Gai,Tig
Thanks to both of you for looking into this.This curved roof canopy profile is by manuf. and the color was "sampled" from their brochure.
By sampled.......I took a snapshot (Adobe Acrobat Pro)and saved as .png.
Imported same .png to SU as a texture.....think I exploded (?).......grouped.
Then....used the eyedropper/match color on screen to create a "color".
Obviously, somwhere in that process I created a monster..... :~)
I hope above info somehow explains the anomaly, and perhaps serves as a way to duplicate the occurance (should there be a need for such a thing).
I will adjust the color as prescribed........and again thank you both for your help in this matter.
All the Best,
Charlie -
You seem to have invented a way of making an opaque material that doesn't cast shadows!
Congratulations ... Glad it's fixed... -
I gave a look to your file Charlie, and when I activate the radio button "Color by layer" in Styles window, the shadow is normal, desactivating it and "your shadow bug" is coming back...maybe this can help. I'll give a look further as soon as I can.
Cheers.
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Well, if you colour it by layer, that buggy material is not in use, probably that's why it displays okay then.
I am also stumped. Images with transparency always cast shadows even with their transparent pixels. This was completely the other way round.
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The bug only work in the original file...I tried to export the mat and use it in another model and the bug is not present...pity, this mat could have been fun to play with !!
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Yeah, sure.
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I suspect that the material had a png texture - and that this png file had some transparency flags set [even if it 'looked' solid] and therefore it didn't cast a shadow [transparent png files don't!]. Subsequently the texture was removed from the material but the material weirdly remembered it and so it still didn't cast shadows - when an RGB value was changed and immediately changed back again, the material gets nudged back to reality and so it casts shadows properly again as it has no texture that might affect this otherwise... Presumably any other change to the material - like using in another SKP - will do a similar 'nudge' and correct the glitch.
I've never came across this before - I can't replicate it...
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Gai, you are quite right - transparent PNG files used as Images don't cast shadows and transparent PNG files used as Material Textures don't receive shadows... BUT they do cast shadows when used as Material Textures...
BUT I have managed to recreate the problem...Make a transparent PNG with some completely transparent areas [typically as used in ImageTrimmer].
Import it as an Image and then Explode it into a Textured Material, OR initially import it as a Textured Material [both ways will 'work'].
Any faces using that material will now cast shadows as you might expect, only variation depends on its opacity.
Now edit that material and delete the reference to the Textured Image, so it is now simply an RGB colored material.
It then immediately stops casting shadows as if it has become fully transparent - even when it is actually fully opaque.
To nudge it back into making shadows correctly you can simply edit one of its RGB values and immediately change it back as it was again. Instantly the material starts casting shadows again... 
Weird -
Weird indeed.
I really wish once the development team found a way for the SU sun to respect image transparency (imagine how easier it would be with billboard entourage) but at the same time I also wish they kept this current method (maybe as a checkbox in the material editor?) when image transparency is not transparent to shadows.
But this misbehaviour???
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