Rendering shadows - NOT the object itself
 

Hi guys,

I've got a question regarding rendering in mental ray. I have an object standing on a plane, using a point light on it with raytrace shadows. Now when I render it, I just want the shadows the object casts on the plane to be rendered and not the plane itself.

I've tried to change the primary visibility of the plane in the attribute spread sheet but that doesn't get me the desired effect.

Is it at all possible to do it the way I want to?

Thanks in advance

you need to use render layers/passes then you can capture just the shadow element of the render on the plane.

So you need to set up the appropriate renderl ayers and then turn off primary visibilty on the sphere and you will then get the sphere casting shadows onto the plane and you will get just the shadow element.

Alan

Thanks for the fast reply.

I forgot to say this, but I'm new to modelling. Could you please explain the details a bit more?

I've tried to go by this post, http://forum.simplymaya.com/showthre...?threadid=7831
but I can't really make sense of it.

I can't really explain it better than that post... watch the free video he mentions there. That should help

Alan