All posts related to V2
By Oli4D
#330433
Hello everybody
I need to render for one of thouse images where the object needs to be on a white floor with a perfect white background.
So, there should be only the object and it's shadow visible, maybe some reflections in the floor, but NO floor visible, no horizon... just pure white.

What is the best approach to do that?
Is there a tutorial about this somewhere?

How should I do it? I work with the Cinema4D Plugin, but I guess you can also explain it for studio, that should not be a problem for me to understand.
But I need to know that workflow.

Thanks a lot,
Oliver

EDIT: I guess there won't be a solution without Photoshop. That's fine, only the endresult counts :)
#330447
Bubbaloo wrote:Render with alpha and a shadow channel, composite on a white background.
Thank you.
Two questions:

1.
I tried so far... I activated the shadow channel... but that channel apears in the MXI completely white... (but of course there ARE shadows in the scene). why are they not in the shadow channel?

2.
For the alpha: should it be rendered opaque or embeded?
#330449
Oli4D wrote:1.
I tried so far... I activated the shadow channel... but that channel apears in the MXI completely white... (but of course there ARE shadows in the scene). why are they not in the shadow channel?
Not too sure what the layout is for Cinema4D, but in the Maxwell Studio: Select the material your floor is set to, go to the Material Properties layer and make sure the Shadow box is checked. You then hide the floor object from the camera and the Shadow Channel will generate what you need.
Oli4D wrote:2.
For the alpha: should it be rendered opaque or embeded?
I tend to use embedded, but I think it's just a preference thing. Not sure which is supposed to be the best of the two.

Hope that helps!
#330450
1. The shadow channel works a bit differently in Maxwell than other programs. By default none of the materials in Maxwell will receive shadows in the shadow channel but all will cast shadows. So unless you tell Maxwell otherwise you'll end up with a white render channel because nothing is receiving shadows that are cast onto it. The place to tell Maxwell what materials you want receive shadows in the shadow channel is the material editor. In the Material Properties panel where you can give the material Global Bump, set the Material ID, etc. you'll see a checkbox for Shadow. Check that for your grass material, for example, and when you run the shadow channel you'll see just the shadows that the grass receives.

2. Here's the bit about opaque alphas from the manual.

"It is also possible to render a completely white alpha for transparent objects with the
Opaque option. If this option is unchecked, transparent materials will render with a
transparent alpha."

And about embedded...

"Allow you to determine whether you want your channels to be
exported as independent files (Separated), or embedded as one single
file (Embedded) in the formats that allow extra buffers, like exr or tif.
The Alpha channel can be embedded in the tga, png, tiff and exr formats."

-Brodie
#330456
RobMitchell wrote:
Oli4D wrote:1.
I tried so far... I activated the shadow channel... but that channel apears in the MXI completely white... (but of course there ARE shadows in the scene). why are they not in the shadow channel?
Not too sure what the layout is for Cinema4D, but in the Maxwell Studio: Select the material your floor is set to, go to the Material Properties layer and make sure the Shadow box is checked. You then hide the floor object from the camera and the Shadow Channel will generate what you need.
Oli4D wrote:2.
For the alpha: should it be rendered opaque or embeded?
I tend to use embedded, but I think it's just a preference thing. Not sure which is supposed to be the best of the two.

Hope that helps!

Ah great, thanks a lot! The thing with the shadow box and hiding from cam seems to work very well.

About the comping of the shadows in PS: Maxwell Renders a shadow channel for every light... what mode is the best to blend them corretly together in PS? With multiply? Or what layer blending mode works usually best?
#330516
oh by the way: Reflections can't be rendered as a separate channel... correct?
I mean... they can, but then I won't have the diffuse, right?
I can render "diffuse and refl", "diffuse only" or "reflection only", but there is no way to render both images separate with one task, right?
In order to get both the diffuse AND the reflection pass separate, I need to render twice... correct?
#330519
I was hoping someone else would answer the question about photoshopping shadows. I typically use multiply but I'm not sure what the "correct" method is for sure.

As for the second question, you're right, you have to do it as 2 separate renders.

-Brodie
#330735
Hello Oli4D,

Yes, you can get a render only with the diffuse lighting, or only with the reflections, but you can not get both passes during the same render.
If you need both passes, you may need to render the scene twice.

Greetings,

Darío Lanza
User avatar
By oz42
#330751
things you'll need (if you want to avoid all that annoying post work in Photoshop!);

1. hyltom's floor mxm - http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... ght=studio
[read hyltom's post about halfway down - in fact read ALL of hyltom's posts, ever! he is a god!] (although this material was made pre 2.0 and doesn't seem to work as well now. In 1.7 you could create a flat floor plane with hyltom's floor material, add a 800W hmi emitter behind it and the floor would reflect the emitter and completely remove the horizon / join!)

2. hyltom's HDR's - http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... highlight=
[the flikr images don't show but the downloads DO work]

3. additional environment advice - http://maxwellrender.com/forum/viewtopi ... om&start=0
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