Hi all, I've got a question that's some what of an oxymoron; I need a transparent object to recieve a shadow! You've got to ask why (hehe). Well, as I've stated before I come from a background in Lightwave. In that program if you want to use a real world picture and place a 3d object on its appearent surface you use a process called front projection. This is a widely used technique used by all the major 3D software companies. This is where the question really starts. Appearently, Vue5I doesn't have that ability (at least I havn't found it). So as a work around I thought of making a transparent object, to apply an ecosystem to, which would match a photo's perspective. The only snag comes when you render the object the shadows are transmitted through the transparent object (as they should). Now the trick! Is there a way to make a transparent object recieve a shadow? I believe this is a worthy question because of the endless possibilities of adding ecosystems to existing scenes. Gary Poole Keep pushin' those pixels and tappin' to the code!

Nope... this kind of shader (shadow only) doesn't exist in Vue.... yet I hope :) The only way to do this would be to use a key color in the same way as a blue screen and blend it during final compositing.

I thought someone posted a way by making an additive material but I can't find the post.

I guess I missed that post.. I can't remember it. I had a talk with Eran (Erka) at siggraph about that subject actually. He said there might be a way to use G-Buffer and multipass rendering to render an object and its shadows only, but I haven't been able to reproduce that so far.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=2318904

Cool ! I remember that thread but I missed the last addition by rodluc. It is close to what I meant by 'blue screen'. Here he used white to blend the shades. I'll bookmark that one for the backroom..

lanaloe77, Thanks for the link. Yeah, I was reading about shadow pass render in the manual last night. Its neat to see that someone has taken the time to do the experiment! I have to try rodluck2001's method. It might just fit the bill. My only other answer was to try to match the material which would serve as the environment's ground surface. Now at least I have a couple of options to try, which is more than I had yesterday! 8) Gary Poole Keep pushin' those pixels and tappin' to the code!