I was creating a scene and thought I had a simple set up ... but well no. I had set up a large group of tree trunks but wanted the leaves to be shadows on the ground. Seemed simple to me. I attached a transparency map of leaves onto the sun ... barely showed ... so I added a spot light and applied the map to that ... same response. Fine ... I put the transparency map to a square and lined it up under the spot/area light ... still a bare hint. I inlarged the light and map ... anyway. After an embarrassing amount of time scratching my head over this. I've come here. HELP!

Can you post some screen shots of the material setup and of the scene? That would help us fully see what's going on.

I've done this, and I believe, to get the shadows to show up, I needed to move the plane very close to the scene, just barely not on camera. Even then the shadows were soft. A couple of things to keep in mind, the smaller the light, the sharper the shadows, and the closer the shadow making object is to the shadow catching object, the sharper the shadows. Shadows will be easier to see if they are sharper. At least it's that way in superfly. I don't know about firefly. You may need to adjust the shadow blur radius. The darkness of the shadows will be effected by other lights in the scene that might wash them out, like a bright sky dome.

Not at my pc now, but will show my settings tomorrow. I will try your suggestions, they make a lot of sense.

If you don't need to show the shadows moving with the sun, it would probably be simplest to just mix the leaf pattern directly into the Ground's texture with a blender node.

... And come to think of it... If you do need to show the shadows moving, you could just animate the U and V offsets on the image map to scroll the leaf pattern across the ground.

Hi Boni, for couple of years i made this render in "Superfly"

Here is the setup that i used last time:

I put a very smal spotlight behind a "one sided square plane" with an alpha map on it.

And here is the alpha map:

This is not from me, but can´t remeber where i found it.

NobbyC, I believe that is what I need, thank you so very much!! Oh, and thank you everyone else who have answered, I always appreciate your help.

I hope this helps, but i can remember that it takes a while to find the right setup. NobbyC

Here is the final image ... it worked out real well!

"Discovered"

Nice that i could help you. But i think there a couple more possibilities to make projector lights for "superfly".

LG Nobby

I'm all for learning new techniques. Please share, NobbyC!

Hi Boni, actual i´m very busy. I let you know when i found some other solutions.

LG NobbyC

I understand busy ... it's all good. Don't work too hard!!

Thank you.

Have you tried attaching the alpha map directly to the light?

Hi Sam! Yes, that was my original plan. the shadow was so soft as not to be noticed at first. Now I have it on a prop plane directly in the light's path and that seems to work much better. Also it avoids unwanted light that makes it look unnatural.