Disable Shadows for a particular object in a scene?

Mouser

I want to switch off the shadows for a characters hair so the shadows dont obscure the characters face & eyes in Iray.

Is there a solution for this?

Thanks

Silent Winter

Not directly (in 3DL it's as easy as clicking 'cast shadows: off' but in Iray everything is trying to be as real as possible.

An indirect solution is to render the image twice, layer them in photoshop/GIMP/etc and then use the erase tool to remove the hair shadow.

Matt_Castle

Yes - because it's directly simulating physics, it's not unlike asking how to turn off hair shadows in real life.

Two options I'll add to the above:
- Reduce the opacity on the hair until you get a compromise you like between the hair's visibility and the shadows.
- If you've got a way to edit in HDR, then you can render to an EXR canvas; you'll have a lot more capacity to adjust the brightness and contrast in the shadows without losing any colour information.

JD_Mortal

Render the model once, like it is... Then render it again, without the hair.

Use a paint-program to erase or lighten the shadows you want gone, by simply erasing the parts of the shadow on the layer that has the shadow. (Note: You will also be removing some realism there.)

If you add a faint light, close to the face, so it illuminates just a tiny bit... You may be able to get what you want, without causing too much anti-realism from the render. (Don't forget that you also have a camera-light that can assist with illuminating the direct view from the camera. However, you will need to adjust the light position and intensity.)