Digital Art Zone

Hi all,

I was wondering if there is way to render a object shadow on another object that is transparent?

What I am hoping to do is render V4 in a pose with shadows falling on a transparent object, then import that render in photoshop and place the render on a photograph and blend the shadow in to make the image seem a bit more realistic.

I know there is more ways to this within photoshop self, but for interest I would like to know if the mentioned method is possible?

Using Daz 4.5

I would have the shadow fall on a matte white surface and then in photoshop set the layer to Multiply or something similar. Haven’t tried it but that probably would do the trick. Just an idea. Not sure how something transparent would ever catch a shadow.

larsmidnatt - 12 September 2012 06:59 AM

... Not sure how something transparent would ever catch a shadow.

Either using pwCatch or Shader Mixer.
Here’s a couple of video tutorials for the latter:
Part 1
Part 2

There is a method called “Shadow Catching” which basically sets up a material surface to only catch shadows. By doing that you can e.g. have a photo as background in Daz Studio and catch shadows on surfaces of a 3D object which is shaped similar to the object in the actual photo.

I am not sure if there is any recent tutorial for this. Carnite did a video tutorial on youtube for Daz Studio 3. Since the Shader Mixer (which is what the tutorial uses) changed quite a bit from Daz Studio 3 to 4.5, the whole Shader Mixer layout and functions changed quite a bit, so the tutorial likely cannot be applied 1:1.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo2OVy9tf8E

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrWtXnijQ_k

Additionally there is there is the pwCatch product in Daz store, which is supposed to do something similar, it is basically a shader for surfaces to dabble with shadows. I don’t own the pwCatch product, so don’t know how this is applied and what features it got.

http://www.daz3d.com/shop/pwcatch

Edit: ah hehe, Porsimo was a bit quicker, shouldn’t write that much

I am not sure, but there is word out that pwcatch still doesn’t work in DS4.5

Edited to add: I did follow Carnite’s tutorials and got a shadow catcher, albeit in DS4 ...
The rocks are a photo of mine that I used as background. The shadows are caught by simple planes that I bent with DForms to get rounded shadows where there are rounded boulders in the background photo.

I knew about pwcatch, but didnt know about shader mixer. good tutorial.

pwCatch should work fine in DS4.5, though you wil probably need to rset it to get the version that recompiles for newer versions of 3Delight.

Richard Haseltine - 12 September 2012 07:35 AM

pwCatch should work fine in DS4.5, though you wil probably need to rset it to get the version that recompiles for newer versions of 3Delight.

Hmmmmm
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/5976/P30/#83366

Awesome, thanx for all the replies guys.

I will try out some of the methods.