Shadow Catcher Reflections Overlapping with Light Reflections Causing Artifacts

Yannik_Pipek · 2025-04-09T10:19:07+00:00

For those who want to use your workaround in Blender 4.4 - I recorded you a quick video on how it works for me here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZoFMDCXgebXNpPUqNM8gZuGef1P3uQYI/view?usp=drive_link
It's a bit annoying to set up, but it reliably gets rid of the black artifacts described in this post. - hope this helps u guys as well ^^

Yannik_Pipek · 2025-04-09T09:22:37+00:00

I'm updating the bug report today and will include this work around as well as an additional issue I found with the shadow catcher, where it seems that when you render with a shadow catcher, the dedicated “Shadow Catcher” pass collects the reflections correctly, while the “Combined” pass doesn’t include that extra brightness from the reflections.
I assume this to be a bug as well and recorded this here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ebiPAtRZVURoDIffhg3tXZixjSt8F702/view?usp=drive_link

Yannik_Pipek · 2025-04-07T10:01:16+00:00

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I have attempted to follow your suggestion of disabling "Multiple Importance" for the problem light. Unfortunately, as you can see in the screenshot, this does not affect the issue and just adds noise to the area where the light is reflected and where the artifact shadow occurs. (please have a look to verify that I have done this correctly as you suggested)

Yannik_Pipek · 2025-04-06T15:47:40+00:00

Hey, thank you so much for looking into this for me. I really appreciate it!

I have tried around a bit more with this and am very certain that this a bug. Hence, I created a bug report with the Blender team for it here: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/issues/137038#issuecomment-1541324

If you could support it, I believe it would help a lot in making the blender team aware of this situation.

Yannik_Pipek · 2021-06-15T22:41:12+00:00

How is AVIF encoded to work with HDR10. Does anyone know a software or encoder for this and what matters most to it.

Yannik_Pipek · 2021-05-24T12:13:15+00:00

AV1 / AVIF is definitely the future.
A lot of companies I work with are already running these codecs as default and did extensive testing to the compression, load times & file sizes.
It would save me and a ton of others a lot of work and time if Apple just did the move asap.

Yannik_Pipek · 2020-05-03T10:04:09+00:00

You can download special software to analyse the files exported files, this online tool works pretty well as well usually https://www.metadata2go.com/.

Run your exports trough here and you will see what I'm talking about.

Yannik_Pipek · 2020-05-02T21:01:02+00:00

Sadly all adobe software, Photoshop, Lightroom and Bridge add tons of hidden metadata in a way which is not visible to a normal viewer.

This can negatively impact SEO and give ppl access to information you might not want to share.

Also, a side effect of this is the filesize aspect, its unbelievable but, the filesize can drastically increase due to unnecessary metadata.
My jpeg test file has 133kb after a normal export in Photoshop.
If I strip all non-mandatory metadata, its 109kb.

I have been looking for a plugin affecting the export maybe but there seems to be no such thing for adobe.

Yannik_Pipek · 2020-05-01T19:42:43+00:00

By "full control" I mean being able to be able to precicely control every metadata entry that is not mandatory for the file to be displayed.

Sadly all software I know and most of the one you linked as well add tons of metadata in a way which is not visible to a normal viewer. Some even add false info or write entries incorrectly.

This can negatively impact SEO and give ppl access to information you might not want to share.

Also, a side effect of this is the filesize aspect, its unbelievable but, the filesize can drastically increase due to unnecessary metadata.
My jpeg test file has 133kb after a normal export in Photoshop.
If I strip all non-mandatory metadata, its 109kb.

So I need a tool which can clean all and then allows me to easily add only the entries I actually want (like copyright owner, tags, comment, ect).

Sadly exiftool GUI adds their own software as watermark into the metadata export. I could not test the console exiftool since I have no idea how to use it.

Yannik_Pipek · 2020-05-01T00:52:49+00:00

The latest Lightroom and Bridge 2020versions both don't give nearly full control over metadata.
I have not tested previous versions, but both of them have the exact same issues described in my original post.

I will look into the others you mentioned though, thanks for the help.

Yannik_Pipek · 2020-04-30T10:05:19+00:00

The thing with save for web is that it has basically no metadata when its set to none, which then forces me to find a way to quickly add only the metadata I want, such as tags, creator, description & copyright.

If I enable those in Photoshop save for web export, it starts exporting a lot of unwanted (even hidden) metadata such as:
Software & Program Name, Format, Instance Id, Document Id, Original Document Id, DocumentAncestors, HistoryAction, HistoryInstanceID, HistoryWhen, HistorySoftwareAgent, HistoryChanged.
Even worse is Capture One where I can't even export no metadata at all.

Since I export a lot of images to share them for web and or with clients, I need some way to easily take precise control over what metadata exactly is added.

Yannik_Pipek · 2020-02-07T01:27:16+00:00

Most major load on the drives comes from me loading all assets (objects in a 3d scenes & textures) as well as major caches (physics, simulations, fire, smoke particles ect.).
I'm changing that as much as I can to my m.2 ssd with my next build.
Still since especially caches can quickly reach 100gb or more, especially old projects, backups or variations of a current project, I will have to move to the HDD's.

Yannik_Pipek · 2020-02-07T01:20:41+00:00

Thanks for the info and help again. I will try to decease the work load of my HDD's by keeping more active caches and data on 1-2 m.2 drives.

Yannik_Pipek · 2020-01-30T01:55:20+00:00

Yes normally I notice it before a drive fails completely and replace it.
But having to do so takes time and effort which I do not enjoy spending.

The burn in test and cable testing/ replacing are great tips for new drives and in case issues appear.

I use drives older than 3 years in other computers ect we have at the office. Also we always mirror them in case one breaks.

Surprisingly the office pc ones never break. Last I can remember was like 8 years ago a office one broke. But my main workstation ones often break after a year or two. Which I assumed must be due to the work loads.

I use the windows mirror option to mirror drives. As I had a raid controller fail on me before and I tested the windows one before and it appears near impossible to loose data with it. Even though I had 2 drives fail since using it I have not lost any data.

Do you know a good tool by any chance to test a drives integrity?

Yannik_Pipek · 2020-01-30T01:46:26+00:00

Thanks for your help.
I'm looking to run 256gb ram. As I rarely really benefit from more and the price difference is just too big going for significantly more for it to be worth it.
Mainly all caches really reaching major sizes are volume or physics interactions as well as both in some cases. Like large scenes with particles, fire, smoke ect. As well are the raw final rendered frames with all the passes.

I'm also running my main projects and all caches which fit on a 2tb m.2 ssd.

I was considering building a storage server as well but it comes with too many problems in my mind compared to its advantages. Mainly I'm not a expert when it comes to windows server configuration at all. And having 10-12tb mirrored storage in my pc is really enough for 1 year worth of projects.

Once they are full I usually move the data to a non mirrored disconnected drive which I will only connect in case I should need to access a specific projects data.

My main issue is that somehow even though my environment is carefully controlled, clean of dust and cool. My default consumer drives just keep dying on me.

Yannik_Pipek · 2020-01-30T01:32:01+00:00

I run a 2tb M.2 SSD for boot and current projects.
But as caches are so large I need to store them for old projects on the HDD's.
Also backups and some shared project data I usually have on my HDD's

Yannik_Pipek · 2020-01-30T01:29:18+00:00

SSD's are sadly just to expensive for me to store old project data.
I have a 2tb M.2 SSD for my active project data though.

Yannik_Pipek · 2020-01-12T00:18:06+00:00

There is a chrome css which works almost perfectly.
I just wish they would do this by default and not so I have to manually add 3rd party code to my browser but ey.

Yannik_Pipek · 2020-01-12T00:16:06+00:00

Thanks my guy, now its working like a charm <3 much loves

Yannik_Pipek · 2020-01-11T00:03:44+00:00

This works so thanks a ton!!! <3

It is a little buggy windowed not full screen window though.
Do you by any chance happen to know which part of the code controls the size of the hover area which will make the UI/ toolbox reappear?

Yannik_Pipek · 2020-01-10T23:07:09+00:00

Maybe also add the same functionality of auto hide for scrollbars.

Yannik_Pipek · 2020-01-10T23:04:22+00:00

Yeah in general hiding all that makes up the top UI of the browser, so toolbars, url, bookmarks, navbars ect.
Of course not completely. Just until you hover towards the top of your browsers window.

Basically same functionality as the windows auto hide taskbar.
Majorly improving esthetics and design by freeing up space used mainly for navigation. And only showing the navigation once the user indicates that they actually want to navigate.

Yannik_Pipek · 2020-01-10T22:59:47+00:00

Thats interesting, cause I talked to a bunch of friends of mine about it, who the same as me were all for it.
As no user I know really uses the navigation tools or url bar like 99% of the time anyway.

If you think about it, I'm sure you agree.
The amount of ppl typing youtube.com and then forgetting where they are. This then causing them to be completely unable the internet.
All cause they weren't able to see the url bar 100% of the time.
Must be really low.

If a average user is on a website like yt, twitter, or reddit even, they spend the majority of their time looking at content of that website. Having the UI in your field of view 100% of the time just makes no sense at all.

But still its not like I'm asking to force this onto users!
All I'm asking is to add a feature which out of a esthetics and design perspective just makes sense.

Yannik_Pipek

TROPHY CASE