Shadows

hi all, i am just finishing off my first 3D CAD drawing for this 10 week course at college and i thought to my self when i finished the drawing 'this image is lacking the realism' so i searched in Google how to make it more realistic, some one said rendering. So i rendered my drawing , added all materials etc. and then pressed the render button and i was amazed by the result how it can add all those shadows, However i think the shadows look a bit to dark and over powering

Is there any way to make the shadows dimmer when rendering so i can see all of the car not just the front?

What is the lighting source? Is this supposed to be outdoors?

supposed to be outdoors

create light

Full shadows on

Date of lighting:14/07/2014

time of lighting:16:56

You could experiment with such things as Sky Effect, Sun Properties or the use of a WebLight.

First I would apply real materials to the geometry (don't depend on the layer color). The easiest thing to do to lighten up the dark shadows is to add other lights from different directions. You will need to experiment with intensity. Since you are doing an outdoor image you probably have the Sun light turned on. Make sure none of the other lights cast shadows (or your viewers will think they are on a planet with multiple suns). Using Help search "Global illumination" and you can read about GI, final gatherer, and radiosity. This gets pretty heavy pretty quickly so I suggest the multi-light approach for the newbie.

Also, turn PERSPECTIVE on. And use Soft Shadows, this will create a falloff fading effect that shadows naturally have, instead of the hard straight edges that you currently see.

Thanks guys, just had a play around and works much better . However it won't let me turn the sky on.

Right-click the Navigation Cube, and select Perspective. This will activate the Sky tool. Sky Background and Illumination is the one you want to use.