Creating Shadow in 3Delight

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• Sven Dullah Posts: 7,621

  November 2018 edited November 2018

  You mean a shadow catcher? You need to create a SC shader in shader mixer. I made a mini tut for a friend, hope that helps;

  It works with all the standard DS lights, shader lights and AoA lights

  1. Create a new scene and load a 3DL skydome, just to cover transparent areas (not necessary, just looks nicer;)

  

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  2. Create a primitive plane that will work as the shadow catcher! Select it and turn Cast Shadows off in parameters/display. Also select it in the surface tab!

  

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  3. Open the shadow mixer pane, it will look something like this:

   

  

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  4. Delete the Default Material brick on the left by clicking the x in the upper right corner! Now you should have this:

  

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  5. Insert the shadow catcher brick and the mix brick by double clicking them in the menu on the left!

  

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  6. Connect the bricks, as shown in the screenshot by clicking and dragging! Set the color in the surface brick to pure black, and set the layer in the mix brick to a value between 0 and 1, one meaning black shadows and 0 meaning no shadows! With the plane selected in the scene tab AND the surface tab, click apply!

  

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  7. Create a light with raytraced shadows and a sphere or whatever to test your shader!

  

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  8. Do a testrender and save as a shader preset! If you want, you can go to the surface pane, click the cog wheel for the layer and rename it to shadow strength or something to your own taste!

  

  Post edited by Sven Dullah on November 2018
• Fae3D Posts: 2,842

  November 2018

  Ok, I have literally never touched the shader mixer, but your instructions looked pretty easy, so I gave it a go.  I only have one problem... 

  I can't connect my "bricks"(?) because one shows C and the other shows F.  Here's a screenshot, hopefully that helps.

  What do I do to change the letters?

  

  

  Screen Shot 2018-11-11 at 1.24.42 AM.png

  1920 x 1080 - 302K
• DaWaterRat Posts: 2,885

  November 2018 edited November 2018

  Basic question... did you make sure that the shadow type was set to raytrace or shadow map?  It's on the Parameter's tab, in the middle of the "lights" section.  3DL lights do not automatically have shadows "on" and it's really easy to overlook, even for those of us who know 3DL fairly well.
  The shadows won't show up in previews, only in the finished render

  Post edited by DaWaterRat on November 2018
• Sven Dullah Posts: 7,621

  November 2018

  Faeofthe3rdDimension said:

  Ok, I have literally never touched the shader mixer, but your instructions looked pretty easy, so I gave it a go.  I only have one problem... 

  I can't connect my "bricks"(?) because one shows C and the other shows F.  Here's a screenshot, hopefully that helps.

  What do I do to change the letters?

  Just connect them, the letter will change when connected. Let me know if you run into more trouble;)
• Fae3D Posts: 2,842

  November 2018

  DaWaterRat, I had the right light setup, with shadows on, so I'm not sure what went wrong, but thanks for the reminder.

  Sven Dullah, after you reminded me that it was called a shadow catcher, I did a search for that and found one someone else had already made.  I'm rendering right now, but it looks like it's going to work.

  I think I'll still try to make one myself, though.  I've always been curious about what the shader mixer does, maybe I'll look up some more tutorials later and give it another try.

  Thank you for your help!!! ^_^

   
• Sven Dullah Posts: 7,621

  November 2018

  Good to hear, no prob:)