Page 1 of 1

Settings for invisible (matte) ground plane with visible floating shadows

Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2021 9:08 pm
by ZeroPop
What specific settings are required for the material/object and render settings to create a ground plane that doesn't render except for shadows cast on to it? (without rendering a separate shadow channel)

Essentially, I'm rendering a car with an environmental HDRI and want the car shadows to appears as if they're directly onto the background HDRI. I have managed this before but more so via a accidental combination of settings.

Seems to be simple via Arnold/ART renderer for 3DS Max but not so for Maxwell.

thanks in advance,

nic.

Re: Settings for invisible (matte) ground plane with visible floating shadows

Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2021 9:21 am
by Andreas Hopf
Here's a video I made for novices https://youtu.be/izYfRjYr_Oo see from 16:56. it's quite simple actually, just like described in the Maxwell manual.

Re: Settings for invisible (matte) ground plane with visible floating shadows

Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2021 2:09 pm
by ZeroPop
Thanks but that's not quite what I was trying to achieve, I'm looking to do a direct image export without compositing separate channels in photoshop, all from within 3DS Max using the Maxwell 5 plugin.

I've done as your video shows in the past but recently achieved the effect via the process above using the built in Arnold render. Can this be done with the Maxwell plugin?