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I am having an issue with using an HDRI environmental image to light an indoor scene. It was working correctly when all of the sudden the shadows stopped showing in the render.

I don't recall doing anything particular between one try and the other, except for adding a plane lamp to brighten up the scene a little bit. After this happened I deleted the plane of light just in case that was the reason but still no shadows.

I leave my environment settings, my render settings, the preview of how the shadows should be and the render after hitting F12.

One thing that is worth mentioning is that my graphic card ran out of memory for the first time. I solved this by switching to CPU and back to GPU Compute, but maybe it has something to do with the main problem. I leave also my system info and I have a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960.

World settings and render preview - correct shadows

"final" render - sorry for the horrible denoising, it was a really quick render

render settings

model complexity

System info

EDIT Here's the glass settings

EDIT Camera's settings

mresala
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    Hi. HDRI provides lighting samples, but I don't think HDRI's can cast shadows. This means that if you had shadows in the scene, they must have been coming from some kind of light source (directional-light, spot-light, point-light, or area-light), or from an emissions panel if you're using them. Double check on what lights are in your scene. – Christopher Bennett Jun 01 '20 at 17:25
  • Hi! thanks for the answer, but I've been casting those shadows with the HDRI. I cannot explain why or how but I got those shadows by simply rotating the HDRI. I have some portals in the windows, maybe that's why? I managed, a few hours ago, to render the same view casting the shadows, I don't know why but it started all of the sudden :/ – mresala Jun 01 '20 at 17:42
  • Sorry, I was thinking EEVEE, not cycles. Any chance you switched by mistake? Aside from that, I don't know what you changed to make the shadows disappear, but you could try defining new ones by using an "Irradiance-Volume" light probe. – Christopher Bennett Jun 01 '20 at 17:54
  • Tried it, still no shadows! the funny thing is that I have another scene in the same model with the same illumination and everything and that one is working fine... it's just with this one.. – mresala Jun 01 '20 at 18:10
  • HDRI environment can cast shadows. Are you using windows with glass materials? if so post the settings in your question. Also, the strength on the environment background might be too low. What happens if you increase the value. – susu Jun 01 '20 at 18:18
  • I must admit, I am at a loss. All I can recommend at this point is to try closing the project and opening again. A last ditch, I know, but sometimes orphaned data has been known to cause some issues. – Christopher Bennett Jun 01 '20 at 18:21
  • It is also possible that the memory on the GPU has not been reset. In which case the solution is to turn the computer completely off and re-start. – susu Jun 01 '20 at 18:23
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    I have no clue what you are trying to do with the nodes for the glass, do you? Please explain. Otherwise try the setup on this post: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/2558/how-to-illuminate-the-darkness-inside-glass-objects-in-cycles – susu Jun 01 '20 at 18:28
  • Hey! so, if I increase the value it gets all burned up, all white. I am using a glass, and I posted my settings. However it was working with this same glass some hours ago. I already tried closing the project and reopen it and rebooting the PC. Nothing changed... I don't remember touching any settings between one render (with shadows) and now (all renders without shadows) – mresala Jun 01 '20 at 18:28
  • Not entirely, I took the glass settings from an old tutorial and I understood most of it but I honestly I cannot explain it. It is working fine though, my other camera shows the shadows and the light is coming through the same glass – mresala Jun 01 '20 at 18:32
  • So, wait. You have 2 cameras, and the shadows show on one of them but not the other? Could it maybe have something to do with the camera's settings then? – Christopher Bennett Jun 01 '20 at 19:13
  • I imagined so, but I already tried setting a new camera again based on the one that works and no results... I'll post the settings for the camera just in case – mresala Jun 01 '20 at 19:46
  • It's fun playing "guess", but if you upload the file, or a simplified version with the error (with the HDR image packed in it) and add it to your question, maybe someone can find the answer. – susu Jun 01 '20 at 20:14
  • So, I was cleaning up the file to send it and it seems now it's solved.. I can only imagine it was a problem with my system's memory. I deleted a lot of furniture and geometry and now it renders correctly, as before. Thanks everyone for your help, if you still want the model let me know – mresala Jun 02 '20 at 07:20

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So, I was able to solve the problem by cleaning up the model. I deleted a lot of objects and now it renders correctly as usual. I guess it was a problem with my system and nothing with the model itself. Thanks again to everyone for the assistance and help! Have a great day

mresala
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