I'm trying to figure out how to make the default ground invisible without losing the cast shadows in Poser Pro 2012. I frequently composite Poser renders with photos (as layers in Photoshop). In Poser 8, I could make the ground invisible, and render the figures with the shadows intact. I can open a scene in PP2012 that was previously created with P8, and render with the ground invisible, yet retain the cast shadows.

I'll attach images to this post to show you what I mean.

The above image was created in P8, and rendered in PP2012. The girls were saved as a PNG file, and dropped into the gray background in Photoshop. Note the cast shadows.

Did you try setting the ground plane to shadow catch only?

Bill

Any ideas?

If you wanted a figure to cast a shadow shaped like it is falling on a wall and the ground, you could add a wall, also set to shadow catch only.

Dang - I just knew it was going to be something simple! Thanks so much, guys! Jeeze - I'm still such a noob...

"If you wanted a figure to cast a shadow shaped like it is falling on a wall and the ground, you could add a wall, also set to shadow catch only."

I love it!!! Thanks, BB - one of those things that's so obvious I've overlooked it ;-)

Thanks again!

Quote - However, when I uncheck the "visible" checkbox for the default ground to make in invisible, it takes the cast shadows along with it! Any ideas?

**Additional Solution#1: ** If you render on the grid that was the default in the Poser Pro 2010 then your shadows will render but not the ground.  It doesn't work with the default ground that Poser Pro 2012 uses.

**Additional Solution #2: ** You can select the ground and uncheck the  visible to camera setting. This will render everything but the ground.

You'll want to make the ground invisible when you want to render all the shadows except the shadows on the ground. This way you'll get the depth on the image without having the shadows on the ground.