help with soft shadows
 

Im am having a heck of a time for some reason with this current project im working on...I have never seen this symptom before. I am using global illumination and lighting using poly planes with a surface shader on it that only illuminates light...But I am getting these really weird and incredibly in-accurate blobby shadows? any ideas...Also is this method of using a poly plane and Final gather the best method to obtain soft shadows? sorry about the crappy image hopefully you can see what im talking sbout
thanks
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w...der911/BDG.jpg

increase final gather i think also show a screen grab of your scene we might be able to help if we could see your setup

thanks for the help...I am so confused I have never had this happen, I have final gather cranked up to 2000 rays??? thats nuts I have never had to turn it up that high...And the shadows still look crummy, its a little better but not much. Here is the image from inside maya, disreguard the spot light I had set that up for photon emission
thanks
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w...Picture2-2.png

Why bother using FG, I would 3 point that and render with raytraced shadows with higher numbers of rays or even software and depth mapped with higher filter settings as its not a hugely complex scene.

Hey Im up for any ideas I just want soft shadows is all...and links to good 3 point lighting set ups