Casting shadows on lower layers but not bg

[Tristan Nieto]

Try this:

Turn off the BG layer (if there is one).

Duplicate your composition (without any shadows) and call it Matte.

Go back to the original comp and apply all the shadows.

Put both the Original and the Matte into a new comp, then copy the BG layer from the original and stick it under both of them (again, assuming there is one).

Set the original comp’s Track Matte to the Matte comp – Alpha.

All the shadows that fall on other layers will be preserved, but any that fall on the background will be masked by the shadowless Matte composition.

It might not be quicker, render wise, but it should give you what you need.

Tristan

[Jon Geddes]

If the animation is from Maya, I would think generating the shadows in Maya would look much more natural. Just a thought.

Jon Geddes
Motion Graphics Designer
http://www.precomposed.com

[Michael Szalapski]

Dave’s got a clever idea; make all of the layers 3d layers, except the background. Then all you have to do is add a light.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Tristan Nieto]

The 3D layer idea could definitely yield a better result. The softness of a shadow would increase as the layers get further apart, which would probably give you a better result, being more realistic.

On the other hand, because 3D lights and 3D layers need 3D cameras, separating the layers along the z axis will give you some major perspective issues. This could be partially fixed with some clever expressions linking the z-pos to the scale, but it’s a whole lot of stuffing about, which, given that you were looking for an easier way, might not be worth the trouble. Alternatively, you could render out the “Front” view instead of the “Active Camera”, but this time the lack of perspective may result in some problems.

Do let us know how you solve it.

[Alex Dinnin]

OK.. THANKS FOR ALL THE POSTS…

FIRSTLY APOLOGIES FOR THE CAPS.. DEEP IN RENDER !!!

ALL OF THE 3D CAME FROM MAYA.. SO NONE OF THE LAYERS IN AE WERE 3D LAYERS.. SO THAT KINDA CHUCKED OUT CAMERAS AND LIGHTS.. AND BESIDES IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A MAJOR PROCESSOR HEADACHE…

I WENT WITH DUPLICATING THE WHOLE COMP.. THEN REMOVING THE BG AND ANY OTHER BITS.. AND THE USING THAT AS A TRACK MATTE TO CUT OUT THE SHADOW..

IT TWAS A BIT OF A CHEAT.. BUT IT WAS ONLY NEEDED AS A SUBTLE EFFECT..

THANKS AGAIN FOR TAKING THE TIME TO REPLY !!!

ALEX

[Darby Edelen]

Instead of keeping caps lock on, have you considered moving the Render Queue panel up to the same drop area as the Comp Preview panel? That way when you render AE will be ‘stuck’ in the render queue panel and won’t render any comp previews.

Darby Edelen