Simple shadow catcher?

[dominionjames007]

Is there a simple matte material in maya yet? One that only catches and renders shadows? thanx...


p.s. not a plug-in, not a hidden shader, not a 20+min setup.. not a "vray" material (which doesn't ship with maya).. just an ordanary shader that i can ad to a ground plane that only catches shadows...

[damaggio]

There's the use background shader (has limitations but easy to use) and the mip_mattshadow from mental ray...more advanced, for simple set up to render all in one image, no composite you also need an mib _opacity.

[damaggio]

Depending on your Maya version the mip_matteshadow might be a hidden feature....hope is not the case for 2014.

[Anifex09]

Maya 2014 has hidden the MIP shaders - This is an easy fix just copy and paste this line into your maya command line (optionVar -intValue MIP_SHD_EXPOSE 1;) - restart maya and you now have access to all of the MIP shaders in mental ray

[dominionjames007]

Thanx so much guys! i ended up using the "use background shader" and exporting the "tiff" file to nuke, but i am using 2014 (*downloaded the 30day trail) hoping to see if the "hidden" shaders were no longer hidden but they are still hidden.. this is what i was working on...

thanks!

[valenRedBull]

Bender!

[Theia_mania]

Hi damaggio,

i use maya 2015 and i used MEL comand to visualize mip_mattshadow.

I'd like only to know the differencez between Use Backgraound node and mip_mattshadow.

Anyway, I make ALWAYS multi pass render, so I'd like to have Shadow (and AO) separate from beauty, and with alpha, of course. So, If I catch shadows with  mip_mattshadow, can I export them as shadow multipass?

And what about catching AO, as well? How can I capture them, always in Mental Ray?

Many thanks for a reply!

[damaggio]

Hi Theia, take a lookk at Darrel Dobert rayswitch and IBL tutorial, maybe you can find some more tips there , read the replies at the bottom on his page too and look at Zaps tutorial as well...my workflow doesn't involve passes or compositing so I'm afraid Ican't give you good advice.

I'm sure you can find stuff concerning the AO passes, take a look at Lesterbanks...lot of good stuff posted there  also elementalray ......I'm posting some other notes I have done for myself here to help me render.

http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/daryl/maya-mondays---ibl

[Theia_mania]

Great damaggio! Very helpfull

[Theia_mania]

Hi Dimaggio,

I see your Rayswitch_2 attachment but sincerely I find it just little caotic...

The first think I note, you used a STILL photo as Plate, but what happen in the real Live Action & CGI integration...? In these cases we have always a sequence ( Image Plane ).... So, the "EYE" slot of Rayswitch shader should be free, cause Camera already see the plate sequence.

In the first Photo (Hangar) you used a Mia_x material as ground plane with AO on. Why didn0t use directly a Use Background, or better, a mip_matteshadow shaders? What we need is Shadows and AO togheter!

Than you used mip_lookup_spherical, but why? You should use maentalray IBLshaders to map HDRI 360° pano... and you can use mia_x_material for glass, mirror, chrome materials, (using presets, for example), and put these shaders in the right slots (Trasparency, Reflection, Refractions) having also the possibility tho convert mia_x in mia_x_multipass...

About "Final gathering" slot, you should put inside a low res blurred HDRI 360° Pano...

About the second image, it look like the HDRI 360° pano and not a Plate. There is a great difference to use and HDRI 360° pano ad Plate or a film sequence. The HDRI 360° pano needs to IBL, to lighting you scene (your plate). If you have not a plate and if you want to light you meshes with a VISIBLE HDRI 360° pano, you can make it but the result is not great... the plate is blurred, not DOF. 

At the end, you document could be really helpful, but you should rewrite it in a more readable and neat, because it makes a great effort to understand what you mean.

(You explanation about BGD Shader and mia_matteshadow, in stead,  were really CLEAR, correct and completely helpful! )

I hope you have time to make it for us.

It could be great!

MANY THANKS!