Creating a shadow pass in Soft 3D

[cyrille-fauvel]

does anyone know of a good method to create a shadow pass in Soft 3D (not XSI)? Besides using the Matter>Info>mental ray panel (where you can toggle on/off the primary, secondary or shadow layers)?

Cheers,

Rob

[virtualife]

you can apply the shadowmatte shader to a material. It renders the shadow into the alpha channel. since the shader works per object base, not the overall shadow of the scene is rendered but only the shadow cast on that object (ground etc.)

btw.: There are no layers in soft3d. the primary, secondary and shadow flags in the info mentalray dialog are used to toggle the visibility to the appropriate rays. (i.e. if you turn off 'shadow' this object will not cast any shadows but still receive them)

cheers
specter

[cyrille-fauvel]

Thanks, Specter! I actually discovered this shadow matte approach. It's amazing how little the Softimage manual delves into some of these procedures - you literally have to figure it out for yourself.

I ended up using Matter>Materials>click on Shadow Object radio button, as well; I applied this to the object casting the shadow, and Shadow Matte to the one receiving the shadow.

Of course, even more amazing is probably the fact that I'm still using Soft 3D It's a great tool, though.

Thanks again,

Rob