edecker

Hi Steven, Sorry for the delayed response but I have not been on the forum for a bit! This plagued me for a long time but I finally worked out a solution using GI. I simply ticked "Generate shadow mask" on a floor plane and because this does not work with GI I added an area light at a very low intensity that casts the shadow and I get my item with a shadow on a transparent background. If you only want the shadow tick the item shadow object only. Cheers, Eric

Thanks for the reply Christian. Like you I have a couple plug-ins that aren't working right. I did remember there was a way to do it with nice results just with the EI toolset and all my searches came up empty. I will look at Richard's postings since he does seem a likely candidate for posting something like this before. Cheers, Eric

I can't remember how to get that xray look on an object. I know it was making something a negative value and really easy and fast without using a 3rd party shader (not that I am dissing those cause I'm not). Anyone remember this trick?

Hey Mat, Try this: http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-769625.html Best, Eric

I actually do this through wireless also. I use a couple other laptops for rendering that are in my house but not my office. They are connected to the same wireless network through Airport. Cheers, Eric

Thanks for checking guys. They sent me a couple versions (times) since I was having trouble opening them so I will see what the problem is. Good tip on the text editor Richard. Cheers!

Pretty sure they used v8 since they just started using it. You got farther in opening it if you see files missing. I get the message right away and cannot get further. Attached. Thanks, Eric sofa_sec.zip

Is there any reason I cannot open a prj file on a Mac that was made on a PC? I keep getting a message "Cannot read File xxx.prj" We have tried several times. Thanks, Eric sofa_sec.prj.zip

Totally helped! I did change mode of the top layer to Silhouette Luma and bingo! Thanks so much. Eric

Any other ideas are accepted. I cannot figure out how to do this and get a clean soft shadow sans the floor it is projected on to. Thanks, Eric

Dave, Excellent tip. Unfortunately I am rendering a sequence of images and my delivery is a set of png with transparency except for the item and drop shadow so this approach will not do it this time. The floor is still retained on the Final Render layer so it is not transparent. It has given me some other ideas on how to achieve this by modifying what you suggested. Thanks, Eric

Hey Tom, Thanks for posting that project file. I now know why it was not working for me. I am using only GI lighting and one radial for specular (set to highlight only) and it gives nice soft shadows on the object and to a floor but using GI lighting alone will not allow the generation of a shadow mask. Any thoughts on getting the GI shadows to allow the mask generation? Project attached: test_shadow.zip

Alex, Funny you mentioned this. I have a couple older machines I use for a render farm and just this morning I decided that while my daughter was at school I would load a couple cameras on her new MacBook Pro 13 inch with 2.3 Ghz i5. Wow what a difference! The little thing speeds through renders faster than any of my machines. Don't tell my daughter though! Eric

Hi guys, For the life of me I cannot figure out how to render an item like a ball with a drop shadow for composition later. I need the shadow on the floor but no floor so the final render is the ball with a drop shadow. Thanks! Eric

Hi Jens, That will work nicely. I did not understand your comment at first. Thanks! Eric Jez, too busy talking and not listening. This is perfect. Thanks again. Eric