Render on White BG

[Randy Johnson]

here is a file showing how i would approach it:
https://www.randyarchy.com/text.c4d.zip

the key part is ambiant occlusion…in theis scene I used the global AO in the render settings but there are other ways of applying it that will speed up render times a lot.

/randy

[Robert Till]

I actually had the same scenario at work not too long ago. I found one way to accomplish this was to create a Sky object and give it a solid white color and don’t have a floor, but that creates the issues of no shadows. I couldn’t figure it out when I needed cast shadows, if I try to make the floor or BG white, it would blow out the color of my model. What exactly does ambient occlusion do?

[Randy Johnson]

The AO gives a self shadow. Mostly visable in cracks and where objets touch.
In this case you have to have a floor to catch the reflection.
You may want to use a composite tag and turn off recieve shadows rather than a sky object to keep your scene small and if you ever want more objects in the scene.
In order to pervent over exposing things try excluding them from the light. (Found in the attrubutes manager of the light under the scene tab)

/randy

[Adam Trachtenberg]

[randy j] “The AO gives a self shadow. Mostly visable in cracks and where objets touch.
In this case you have to have a floor to catch the reflection.
You may want to use a composite tag and turn off recieve shadows rather than a sky object to keep your scene small and if you ever want more objects in the scene.
In order to pervent over exposing things try excluding them from the light. (Found in the attrubutes manager of the light under the scene tab)”

I’ve done most of that in this scene file: https://www.3danvil.com/tutorials/text_on_white_background.c4d

Basically, using AO and reflection on the floor material, along with compositing tag with “compositing background” checked, as well as a sky object for the background (could as well be a Background Object).

[Robert Till]

I had never noticed the exclude attributes before. I’m still pretty new to the program and am having to self teach until we start going over this in class. None the less the company I’m working for has me doing it. Luckily there are people here, as well as myself, who are able to make up for me not knowing everything about this, i.e. Photoshopping in post.

Thanks for the help, you saved me TONS of time in the future.

Rob

[Robert Till]

Actually i have 1 more follow up question. If I use an Omni Light to make my background white and exclude my object, how can I make it so my original cast shadows still show up. I need shadows, but on a white BG. Any ideas?

[Adam Trachtenberg]

This is why you use the compositing background option in the compositing tag (to make the BG white).

Otherwise, though, you would create a light to illuminate your background (include only background in light properties), then duplicate the light. In the duplicate light’s “Details” tab, check the “Shadow Caster” box; now the duplicate will only cast shadows without adding illumination.

[Robert Till]

I’m pretty sure that from your secondary explanation I can figure it out from there, because i have multiple lights it’ll be a little tricky. I’m still extremely new to the program so i really haven’t dealt with tags at all as of yet.

Thanks for all your patience with my limited knowledge of the program, it’s been a big help.