Help with matte shadow object

[billskinzfifth]

Hello,

I am working on a scene that has a number of objects spaced down a spline. I would like to reveal them sequentially. I have used a tube with a matte shadow material applied to it to surround and hide the objects from rendering, then by animating the percentage along path, I move the tube and expose the objects, which allows them to render. The effect is exactly what I need, however, the hidden objects are still casting shadows.... If anyone knows how I can hide the shadows with the same matte object, please let me know. I realize that I could easily hide the shadows in After Effects in post, but I would prefer to have the matte object hide the shadows because the project may require multiple camera moves, lighting moves and re-renders. I'm trying to streamline the total time between re-renders.....

Any ideas?

*** I have posted this question on other forums and just to clear up some confusion, I am trying to avoid the shadows from being seen on the ground plane, not inside the matte shadow tube. Even though the objects are rendered invisible when they are inside the tube, their shadows are rendering on the ground.

jEFf

[schultzeworks]

I use the matte shadow material all the time and found it best for clean studio environments, not the use you have outlined.

I think the best approach to sequentially reveal objects would be to use either the (1) visibilty track or (2) animate the opacity of your material.

Make sure the light that is casting the object shadows is raytraced, otherwise the shadow-mapped default light will not work properly with semi-transparent materials. Also, the material itself may need to be a raytrace type as well -- if you run into shadow problems.

For the visibilty track, see the F1 help section. Its an excellent overview.