[H.I.O.M]

If you choose to make an object (ground for example) unseen by camera, can you keep the shadow on it visible? If yes...please explain how...

[R4s1n]

well just keep the object out of sight but still position the light on it. i have attached an image to show that its possible

[H.I.O.M]

Oh sorry...I ment making the ground disapear with only the shadow lying on it visible

[kumar]

Hmm,, good question,,, makes me wonder too???

Edit> Well you need something for the shadow to fall on,,, unless you are thinking of compositing,, where you have to render out the shadows and then composite them.... Thats my thought on it, anyway.

[Claudio]

Your intentions are to build a place or scene and transport it to Premiere or so, to use with a real footage?

Sure I'm not the expert here, but if I have to do this I'd use the background as matte object (P - Render, T Green Neon).

This will work as a base of your shadows but will not show if you use chromakey.

[Claudio]

Other thing you could do is have the floor at the same color as the background....

[moenzi]

maby you can make the floor transparent like glas without refraction so you don't see the floor
Don't know if it will work?!

[Mark]

Making the floor transparent won't work - I've already tried that one in a project of my own.

What you can do, is to perform some quick compositing in Lightwave. Simply take your matte image, and place that as the backdrop in your scene. Next, apply that same image as a front projection map to the ground object. Since the two images line up seamlessly, you'll end up with an invisible floor object that has the shadow cast upon it. As in the attached image below:

[Mark]

Note that in this image, you can see the ground object - just. You'd need to play with settings a little more to make sure that it doesn't get affected by lighting conditions, etc.

[H.I.O.M]

Thanx Mark I'll try that

[zareh]

Worley's LSD tool found in G2 will do this.
It makes the ground object on which you're projecting the
image "dissapear" by making it 100% Luminous but it
darkens the shadow area to your specifications (including
color). Hence the name Luminous Shadow Darkening (LSD).

www.worley.com

take care

[H.I.O.M]

Thanx zareh! I'll try when I get the time to get G2...

[chrispo]

Ahh, I had this problem too, heres a magic fix for it sweedish dude:

Simply press that shadow density, it masks only the shadow, very skillful! - I try my best to colour the plane close to what Im on, cause masks carry the pixel info from it.

Any use?

[H.I.O.M]

I could try it yes...Thanx dude