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I'm using a png with a transparent back ground for a texture, and while the transparent portion appears to be transparent, there is still a shadow under it from certain angles - but no shadow with other angles.

Here the light is casting the shadow at an oblique angle

And here, if the light is behind the observer, you can see the transprent part of the image casting a shadow.

Nodes I'm using

What am I doing wrong? How can I get rid of this "eclipse" shadow?

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  • $\begingroup$ And my color in the transparent node IS set to full white, BTW. $\endgroup$
    – Daniel McKinney
    Mar 1, 2018 at 16:37
  • $\begingroup$ Try disconnecting the Fac on the mix shader and manually varying between 0.0 and 1.0. How does that affect the extra shadow? (this will determine whether it's a problem with your alpha) $\endgroup$
    – Rich Sedman
    Mar 1, 2018 at 17:01
  • $\begingroup$ Using Felix's answer, I was able to solve the problem. $\endgroup$
    – Daniel McKinney
    Mar 2, 2018 at 19:57

1 Answer 1

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The texture in your picture is not fully transparent. Since the Transparent node is set to fully white, your texture is not fully transparent in its background. Otherwise the material setup is fine.

Notice the eclipse shadow only appears behind the texture and is the same color as the surrounding shadow. This means you probably have an error in your light path setup. A simple reason could be that the transparency passes is set to low, and Cycles cuts off the light rays not allowing them to pass through the transparent material often enough.

Fix this by increasing your Transparency bounces in Properties >Render >Light Paths:

demonstration_pic

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    $\begingroup$ Felix - Perfect!! Fixed in an instant, after struggling all morning trying to figure it out. Much appreciated! I have had Blender a couple of weeks, and learn something new every day. I love this stuff. $\endgroup$
    – Daniel McKinney
    Mar 1, 2018 at 17:25

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