There's of course a binary option to use shadows or not to use shadows with a lamp. How can I do this somewhere in the middle, giving more control to use, say, 50% shadows?
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$\begingroup$ First thought; Decrease the intensity of the lamp by 50% $\endgroup$– AlexanderESmithCommented Apr 8, 2020 at 0:46
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You can accomplish this by changing the material of the object casting the shadow and using the Light Path node:
Here, the principled shader would be the material of the object (replace with your material), and the factor of the mix shader determines how much of the shadow this object casts. (1.0 is no shadow, 0.0 is entire shadow).
If you're unable to change the material of the object, another approach would be to render the scene twice, once with shadows enabled for the light source and one disabled, then mix the results together. Obviously, this has the downside of needing to render the scene twice.
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$\begingroup$ Is a variant of this method usable for individual lamps, or does it affect all of them? $\endgroup$– LegomanCommented Apr 8, 2020 at 3:09
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$\begingroup$ @Legoman Changing the material of the object will affect shadows from all light sources (even emissive objects). To have it apply to only one light source, you'd have to use the second approach of rendering the scene twice. I'd recommend trying to change the lighting in your scene first though, and only use it as a last resort. $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 8, 2020 at 3:17