Anyone know how to go shadow catching, getting figure shadows to render over a background picture in P6? Thanks. K.B.

Don't know as Im only a newbie, :o)
BUT have you tried using a square plane from your primatives and applying the background image to that and positioning it just where you want it, as it's an object it should accept the shadows
...i find that better than using the background for floor as sometimes things arent where you want them to be

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=1065775&Start=1&Artist=destro75&ByArtist=Yes

Yes, Lully has the best suggestion. Use a one sided square primitive, size it to fill the background, then apply the image you want to use to it. Then you will get the shadow effect on it. That's the method I used at the attached link. I don't usually like to post my gallery submissions, since it inflates traffic unfairly, but I think it appropriate here, so you can see the benefit of this method. Hope this helps!

or just load the prop and import your pic then turn on shadow catching in the material room for the prop and hit render

Why not just use the Poser ground plane, in P6 it's default set up to have shadow cast on as its only feature, it's not even visible but it catches shadows... So the moment you load a background picture you will get the shadows... Or am I missing something here?

Attached Link: http://www.lullys.com/temp/shadow.jpg

it does on a verticle plain but not on a horizontal(think i've got that round the right way)

here's a quicky to test it out (see url link) the model is at the edge of the ground plane, the shadow stops and doesnt go up the back

thing is, even if you want a shadow there, unless its supposed to resemble something flat, the shadow it will cast will make it look flat.

Message edited on: 10/16/2005 15:01

There is a new download freebie in the poser section here entitled P5 Ajrarns Shadow Catcher. It is a prop for P5. Ajrarn says P6 has it's own shadow catcher, and I supposed he's talking about the Material Room wacro "set up shadow catcher". I'm trying to figure out how the thing works. I want a figure-character, not a prop, to cast a natural looking shadow on a background pic. Can't seem to figure it out. Rendering over a background picture in Firefly dosn't do it either. Thanks.

You don't need to use wacros or anything. As I said, on Poser's ground plane, the shadow_cast_only is allreadt checked so you can simply use the ground plane to get the shadows. Remember that at least one of your lights must be set to cast shadows (raytraced or shadow mapped that doesn't matter) and that Shadows must be turned on in the render settings. The default, rather crappy render setting in P6 does NOT have shadows switched on IIRC...

Thank you ernyoka1 that was exactly what I was looking for. K.B.

Thanks, Ernyoka. :) Ooops... i just saw that my P5 shadow catcher is not working... i put the wrong thing in the zip. I'll either correct that or delete it. Sorry about that. :(