Need some help with Shadow Catching

[Henri_Chretien1]

Hi guys!

I’m in need of some help regarding shadow catching with Arnold . I’m lighting a scene with a Physical Sky and sun and have a Shadow Matte applied to a face for catching the shadow of an object. However, from what I can gather it appears the plane is receiving shadows from the ambient light as well. At least, that’s what I think is happening. Whatever the cause, I’m not really getting a clean enough shadow pass to work with later on in compositing. Here’s an example of my issue:

Here’s a closer look at the shadow pass AOV:

Any ideas?

[lee_griggs]

Have you tried increasing the number of shadow samples in the Environment Lighting?

[Henri_Chretien1]

That made a huge difference. I'm able to pull a clean shadow from the AOV now. Thank you very much!