3ds max realistic lighting problems

Busterizer

I have a problem with doing realistic lighting in my scene. The scene is simple street in which I want to put night time lighting (something like 5 A.M. lighting with street lights still turned on).

I have a street and 3 street lights with quite a distance between them (same as real life distance) with one point light for each and, one sunlight (AO).

The problem in question is that those 3 point lights need to cast shadows, and are making street light in the middle show vertical shadow line on itself. This is not there on the street light in front of my house that has pretty much same street light setup.

How can I make the lights to cast shadows without these unintended vertical shadows on objects in between like said middle streetlight?

All I could come up with through research is to make light dome with many spot lights so the object is evenly lit (from exterior light tutorials), which I don't want. Sorry if this sounds very confusing, I tried my best to explain it without a render (render itself wouldn't help much).

Eric Chadwick

Actually a render would help, especially to see the exact shadow problem.

Also please post your reference, what you're trying to achieve.

Finally, what renderer?

Busterizer

Nevermind other problems that are shown in the render, my main problem is with shading, other stuff I can fix on my own. Light parameters and positions are shown in screenshots, it might help, I also tried using exposure and light tracer, whatever I try it gives this shadow thing.

Eric Chadwick

What renderer, and show your reference photos please. My streetlights do this. All renderers are not created equal. What shadow type are you using? Etc.

Busterizer

I can't find anything suitable to show as a reference image, and I can't take a picture either. Rendered image from 3ds max is first image in above post, you can see in screenshots that I used 3 point lights and a sunlight, and that lights are setup to 'shadow map' for shadow settings.

Basically I don't wish to have that black line visible since the light is right there where the line appears. I know its created from the other two lights and their ability to cast shadows, but I don't want this effect, I want the pole of the street light to be lit from its own light, and not shadowed from other two lights.

Eric Chadwick

Simplest solution is to use a spotlight instead.

Without photo reference though, you'll never get a realistic result. The pros use photo ref, for a good reason.

Busterizer

I tried that too but spotlight has same effect for whatever reason, I use the street light in front of my house as a ref (too bad I can't post a picture, its right there in front of me). I was hoping to make light setup that would be applicable in competitive game engine, before I actually try to mess around with one ( -> I have my reasons, one of them is wasting way too much time to test it in engine, in case I can't make it work as I want it too from 3ds max, and I can't run UE4 either).

Eric Chadwick

Rotate the spotlight outwards, away from the lampost.

Busterizer

Ok, I see, that fixed the problem. Thank you.