I pick up the ground color and the desire shadow color from the image put the value in the Lit Color and Shadow Color set the Calibrate value to Zero and render my color shadow with one simple light.. for the extra  blending color tones set the Shadow Blur Radious to 20 in some cases and it work briliant.. THANK YOU BB!!!!!! it can't be more simple... ...and render so much faster as the shadow catcher feature...

i did not used it with a good light so just for simple quick  test ...

But I will go and work (take a guess which ones they are). Only way for me to know.

**Robo2010 , you don't have to build it, just put the material BB did into your material folder and add to the ground plane from your material room and change the values to fit your needs .....so simple ...
**
see the post above by BB ::
*Attached File: ShadowCatcher.mt5.txt (13.5 kilobytes)

*Here is the colored shadow catcher shader. Save it to your materials runtime as ShadowCatcher.mt5. Load it onto your ground plane or square.

*Robo2010 , you don't have to build it, just put the material BB did into your material folder and add to the ground plane from your material room and change the values to fit your needs .....so simple ...

AH!,...how in the world could I have missed that. Geesh (hits forhead).

welcome back on the track! ::

Cath,

I'm so happy it worked right. You're test image is spectacular. I didn't try any other situations, so it's great to see that it did the right thing.

Robo - Glad you got it sorted out. In case you really have to know, those nodes are just Simple_Color or Math_Functions. But even if you tried to build it - how could you? I didn't show you the rest of the nodes. There are a lot more nodes. In my screenshots I just showed you the ones you have to touch.

*Robo - Glad you got it sorted out. In case you really have to know, those nodes are just Simple_Color or Math_Functions. But even if you tried to build it - how could you? I didn't show you the rest of the nodes. There are a lot more nodes. In my screenshots I just showed you the ones you have to touch.

*Thats ok for now. I finally got the mt5 file, and all shows in the material room. I am busy at the moment, cooking for wife, family. Also doing windows XP maintenance, all at the same time.  

I was so excited yesterday (and even today) for this, and was out ready to take outdoor photographs. Only good shadows was for 10 minutes hour, and was to late finding it raining and cloudy. But, oh man, when that sun comes out at that special time. I am so ready. I will have to hook up my other Hard drive to get that one photograph I really like to try this on. I will also load it up in my download page, so others like yourself and even Mec4D to play with. give an hour or two.

Will be awesome when a family video is used as background.

Thank you BB again you really spare so much work for me doing it, especialy for animated work this is so excellent .. the rendering speed too
I have to make the HDR + light test to see how it come out but well I hope the AO pick up the nice color as usual.. have to test it while hot on the table! :)

somebody can make dinner for me? I am busy... just kidding..

Thanks again BB

*somebody can make dinner for me? I am busy... just kidding..

*

*P.S forgot to add that by the last settings my shadow value by the sun light was set much more higher..
look here the virtual shadows blends perfect together in 2 min.... one hdr and one sun light...
for me works perfect and would be in usage as standart !

*Looking good.  

See if you can put one of those spheres in one of those entrances, and one out from it. 

I will eventually get to play (looks at watch and life situations).

I am so excited about this thread.

What would you recommend for reflected color from differing objects; where different shadows have different color hues on the same surface?

and

http://images.buycostumes.com/mgen/merchandiser/24750.jpg

For that you can use Gather shader node  that will reflect the color of the object , the most simple thing you can do b/c the GI .py script is not that perfect yet to use however i made cool tests with that as well ...

I've tried the gather node in the past. Problem I kept running into is the item glowing where light levels were low. Perhaps very  low ambient values and very high gather values....

Thanks.

Great info. Thankie.

Aye. because the reflected color is of such a low value in the real world that is can mostly only be visible in lower light levels.

I will definately play around with this more. 

I like that it looks like it would be good at faking translucency too.

Yes Anton, see in my gallery Image " WOT " good example for that.. a fake illumination from a object that use also  translucence node ... works perfect ? 2 shadows, one green one standart..

Quote - I made some changes in the Calibrate_BLACK node and set the second value_2 to 1,0000 also, this remove the tint from the background complete and it don't make the background image darker no more.

Cath,

That node is a Math_Functions:Add node. Because you placed a 1 in Value_2, it adds them and produces 2. While you can get away with that on that node, it isn't what I intended for you to do. Just put a 2 in Value_1, or a 2.5, or 3, or 4. The purpose of that node is to detect where there is NOT a shadow, so that the shadow catcher effect is 0 (BLACK). That's why you tune upward until you get black in calibration mode.

The Calibrate_WHITE node is also a Math_Functions:Add node. BUT BE CAREFUL! There is something plugged into Value_1 - I need you to edit Value_1 always, not Value_2. If you edit Calibrate_WHITE Value_2, it will not include the plugged in value and the results will be wrong. The purpose of this node is so you can tune upward to determine where the maximum tinting should occur. I want to see 1 (WHITE) where you want the maximum shadow catcher effect.

These two calibration nodes are very important. Any time you change your lights, do a calibration render again to make sure you're getting black and white. If you don't get black for the un-shadows regions, it accidentally tints the whole picture, just as you discovered.

If Poser had a Simple_Number node (something like the Simple_Color node), then I would have used it, so there would be no confusion or possibility of mistake. But, alas, there is no such node. The closest thing is to use a Math_Functions node and just ignore Value_2 - leave it at 0. It is true that some of my parameter nodes don't care which one you change, but don't rely on that behavior. It is accidental. Always use Value_1 and pretend Value_2 isn't there.

I wish they would hire me. I could do tons of cool stuff for them in just a few weeks. This is what I do in my real job - we build business rules calculations using nodes, only in my system, users can make up new nodes by assembling the existing ones. Then they get to put the parameters they want on the new object, and nobody has to see how the insides work. No coding either.

I tried to make an animating GIF of these three renders so you could see the differences more easily. It looked like crap.

Anyway, I wanted to show what a toned down amount of Gather should look like. I have Gather and AO on the ground and the ball, so the ball lights the ground and the ground lights the ball.

I did it in Poser 6 because Poser 7 (the thrid render) doesn't work right. They broke it. Face_off says use material based AO because it works better - well this IS material based AO. It doesn't work better. It sux.

I used 25 samples - that should be high enough to avoid banding and splotches.

Attached Link: AOG.html

Follow the link

Quote -

Cath,

That node is a Math_Functions:Add node. Because you placed a 1 in Value_2, it adds them and produces 2. While you can get away with that on that node, it isn't what I intended for you to do. Just put a 2 in Value_1, or a 2.5, or 3, or 4. The purpose of that node is to detect where there is NOT a shadow, so that the shadow catcher effect is 0 (BLACK). That's why you tune upward until you get black in calibration mode.

I know BB thanks I was just quick playing with that but well setting the Calibrate_Black to higher values make it better , I just need some time to work with and find the best way for me to work it out.. so sometimes little experiments are fine, the above setting i did was only for myself to fit what I did not for the general usage ;) .. thank you again for the note about

Quote - I wish they would hire me.

write to them about, they maybe will do, this is cool and more simple looking for the regular users.. heheheh.. you could make a good job there in this room and move it a little bit forward.. before DAZ kill it with own ideas.. yesterday when I checked the new features in Daz Studio it was funny that they go ahead with the new stuff beside the lighting in Daz studio is still to much game looking for me and not so clear..

Quote - Regarding the gather, I find that the effect is usually too strong. If you're plugging it into Alternate_Diffuse, choose a gray instead of white for the value multiplier. This will make the amount of gather much more subtle.

I see the gather get a little bit over the edges in P7... can't see anything on this website you posted above it is clean so no flash or anything visible ..
I made a quick test before so not exact.. I never use white surfaces in my final renders and for the best effect I spend 12-16 hours on so not compared to 2 min preview.. but well we have to keep it simple and give the oportunity for the users to play with that.. the self made cookies taste the best right ? ;) I made one pic using only gather nides for the surfaces where was not specular and everything based on reflect and fake GI.. it was looking very natural, rendering time was a killer but well a good quality..  every surface and material need own attention and different settings.. even for GI, we can use one script and light everything the same way.. this will go to nowhere.. skin or wall reflect light different ways that why in some progs everything looks not natural at all , nice for the eyes as illustrations but not photographic effect..

In you flash code you forgot to change the names and path that why it don't play :::

<em>::::<<span class="start-tag">embed</span><span class="attribute-name"> name</span>=<span class="attribute-value">"Untitled-1" </span><span class="attribute-name">src</span>=<span class="attribute-value"> </span><span class="attribute-name">width</span>=<span class="attribute-value">"358" </span><span class="attribute-name">height</span>=<span class="attribute-value">"322"::::::<br></br><br></br>replace red with : </span></em><span class="attribute-value">"http://poserbagginsbill.googlepages.com/aog.swf"</span>

Quote - How cool would it be if Poser let me make new nodes like this :biggrin:

 
I begged for the ability to make custom nodes via a locked macro. Or at least password protected nested nodes. I begged and nagged. No luck.

Quote - I wish they would hire me:

 
If this ever comes to pass, email me.

I really like the images above. Bounced color is my new favorite thing. But I do most of it in Postwork.

bagginsbill i tryed your new shadow catcher. grounbreaking. and even better then the first one.

how do you do this?

You really want the math behind it or just a general explanation?

no no no. i dont want explanation.
i just asked how do you come up with this .

did they hire you? for christ sake why dont you work for them? and why dont they do what you asked them?

he he :)

I come up with solutions when someone asks how to do something. I usually don't know how to do it until then.

It's what I do professionally - invent software that most people think cannot be written, or cannot be written quickly.

Unfortunately I am not smart enough for the fancy node tricks. :(
My dumb-painter approaches are:

1. an IBL light set low with a color complementary to the main shadowing light.

2. a very dark complementary color set on the ambient channel of everything in the scene to fake an ambient IBL... gradients can be used here also.

3. a separate shadow only render that is composited to a no shadow render and colorized in Photoshop.

try gamma shader and you will see how an IBL 20-30% can make your render look good.

can we do a basic shadow catcher without the color options and calibration?

like the poser catcher with gamma correction ?  i dont need shadows to have color and calibrating takes some time when i do test renders.

i was trying to change your shader BB but i had no luck.

i substracted the diffuse node and connected it to transparency. didnt look good.

thanks for help.

edit

I can't think of a way to build the shadow catcher using nodes that controls transparency without calibrating. The problem is there is no node that tells you directly how much you are in shadow. All we have is how much light is reflecting, either using a Diffuse node or something similar, such as Clay. I can't even tell how much light is hitting the surface. I can only tell how much is reflecting after hitting, which is based on the normal as well as the light intensity and where the shadow is falling.

So that's why I used the Diffuse node and require that you calibrate, so the shader can know how bright it is when lit and how bright when in shadow.

For example, with an IBL and an infinite, the two values could be .3 and .6, or .1 and .9, or .8 and .9. Which do you look for? Is .5 in shadow? Not in the last one - the last one has .8 in shadow and .9 when lit. So we have to calibrate.

The AO node gives us a direct measurement of occlusion, regardless of how much light is falling. We need a similar node for directional shadows but there is no such thing in Poser.

The information is there, just not accessible or derivable using existing nodes. Only the built-in shadow catcher is able to detect "in shadow %" without regard to light level or angle of incidence.

Also, in P7 it is not possible to build GC into this if we use transparency. We do not have a transparency node either. I wish we did. I would like a Transparency node that gives the color of the object behind the current object, similar to what Refraction does at IOR = 1, but without having to do ray-tracing.

I can build a GC shadow catcher using ray-tracing and refraction instead of transparency. In fact, I already did. But it's slower than the transparency version.

If you really don't care about color or shadow intensity, just use the built-in one.  I know it doesn't do GC, but it is good enough for test renders.I'd argue if you're not interested in shadow color, you're not really interested in shadow intensity that much, right? Because pretty much GC would only change the shadow intensity.

thanks for the explanation.

like you said for test renders i should use the built in shadow catcher.

i am having problems calibrating with the ShadowCatcher-AO.
ShadowCatcher-AO can be used for only AO on the ground right? 

with the Calibrate Lit i pic the white part right? 
with the Calibrate Shadow i pick the dark part that i get from AO right? 

i think i made it to work.
when using material AO its best to have wthite and black because material AO doesnt change with lights. right?

Was dealing with this problem today... the mt5 file provided in this thread is already gone, so i guess I'll just deal with the shadow color in Photoshop, seems the faster way to go :)

Nice necro-post.

The shadow catcher invented in this thread is available from my site and has been for a long time. In fact, it has been improved.

https://sites.google.com/site/bagginsbill/free-stuff/shadow-catcher

Please note it was written before there was a SuperFly and it only works in FireFly.