Making very hard shadows softer? Once I set up the lighting I've noticed that there is a very Hard Shadow falling from one object to another, from the Sky Map. Is there a way to make the Shadows softer without affecting the Intensity of the Sky Map.



| world settings 



I put the samples up to 200, the difference isn't that big in this scene, I don't like this Harsh Shadow, and want to change it, but no method comes to my head



I tried unchecking the Shadow box in settings of the front object; the one casting this harsh shadow, and it seems to work, but now I am not sure if this is a good way of getting around it?
Depending on what you want, there are a couple ways to approach this.

Increasing the Size (in Properties > Lamp) of the main lamp to produce softer shadows:



Or Angle value if you are using blender 2.8 :



Here's a gif showing the size animated from 0.1 to 1:



Adding a second lamp to to put more light into the shadowed area:





Disabling Shadow rays for an object allows light to pass through and illuminate surfaces behind it. If this works for you, then all well and good, but be aware that this isn't a physically accurate phenomenon and may look strange in some situations.