here ya go i was going to do this earlier but i was busy with my biology, but 5 easy steps to soft shadows without the use of GI Joe or mental ray, just maya
1. model a simple scene, i have a plane, sphere and a cube and position them like below
2. create a spotlight, and with it still selected, in any viewport click on panels>look through selected and position the spotlight so its like the image below (this just allows you to see shadows easier, you can put the light anywhere you want)
3. with the light still selected, hit CTRL+A which will bring up the attribute editor and use the following settings for the light:
cone angle = 40 (this is how far the light will reach, the size of the light cone if you will )
prenumbra angle = 20 (this is the distance from the edge of solid light to the point where theres no light at all, how far it fades basically)
dropoff = 5 (this is the intensity at which it fades the light edges
check the box that says use depth map shadows
dmap resolution = 400 (this is what i would define as blurriness, the lower the number the blurrier the shadow)
dmap filter size = 4 (i think this is the quality of the shadow blur, if you turn it down it looks crap)
3a. If you look through the spotlight again you'll see that it has changed, this is because you've changed its attributes (you can also do it with the show manipulator tool)
4. Now open up the render globals (which is two buttons to the right of the render button in the status line) and make sure anti-aliasing quality is set to production
5. now you hit the render button and voila soft shadows
i know you've been asking about GI Joe, but you can get soft shadows without GI Joe, if you want soft shadows on a character (like shadows on a characters neck caused by its head or something), this method also works, just model something complex and you'll get what you get with GI Joe (well, almost, GI Joe is global illumination, theres a difference)
I use this method mainly for ground shadows, but for self shadows (like on a character) i would use GI Joe, which is amazing cos you can use both methods (dmap shadows and GI Joe) together and itll look amazing, trust me
i can do another short tut on GI Joe if you want, but you'd have to provide the model cos i cant model
Last edited by Nem; 03-04-2003 at 10:54 PM.