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How does one render “shadows” and “objects on transparent” separately at the same time?
I’ve spent the last 2 days looking online but and unsure how to go about doing this. I’ve seen so many tutorials… there are answers out there for one or the other but not both at the same time.
Im doing visual effects for video where a minecraft creeper is walking on a street in cinema4d. I have a video reference background and a floor so the shadows can be projected onto something. When I go to render out the multiple passes I can either get:
creeper on all black background and shadows (meaning background/floor is “seen by camera” so the shadows have something to project onto)
or
creeper on transparent and no shadows. (meaning background/floor is “not seen by camera” so the shadow pass comes out with no shadows on the ground/completely white.)
The closest I could get is to use the object buffer on the creeper and a luma matte it when in after effects but wanted to know if there is a way to render shadows only and objects on transparent by just hitting render once, without having to render once, shut off the floor and re-render.
Here are my system settings and detailed image about what im trying to achieve:
(the reason the “regular image” is turned off is because it seems like a waste of resources since the regular image shows up with an all black background when I can get that render as a blend channel image.)
https://imgur.com/a/VosHTThanks!
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5 Replies
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Check it out: https://motionworks.net/cinema-4d-the-shadow-catcher/
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Thanks for the suggestion! I probably should have stated in my original question that I have watched that video and do have the shadow catcher plugin. Only thing is that it combines the object and the shadow together as one image. Is there a way to get the shadow by itself and the object by itself as 2 separate image sequences? The linked image album in my original post has a detailed example of what Im trying to accomplish.
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You can render a separate shadow pass, or you could use the combined render with a object buffer. Not sure what your objection is to the latter. You don’t have to render twice to get an object buffer.
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Im not particularly opposed to it, I was just thinking it would take longer/more computer resources to render something with more passes I have to put out. Do you think that’s true? I’m trying to maximize my workflow for a film competition where you only have 48 hours.
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Object buffers take slightly longer, but the difference is minimal.
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