Maya Arnold - Shadow Matte - Ramp on Shadow Opacity

[dziuba.maciej]

Hi guys,

I hope this question won't sound nooby, but I'm new in Maya and still learning.
I would like to create a smooth shadow fade out so that shadow doesn't touch any edge of the rendered image.

I was trying to apply a Circular Ramp on Shadow Opacity of Shadow Matte but it is not working at all.
Do you know how should it be done properly or any workaround?

thanks!

[mspeer]

Hi!

Using a Ramp should work, but the outer color has to be black and the inside white, so you need to reverse the colors of your Ramp.

The UVs also have an impact, but I can't check them from the provided data. You should use a planar projection.

[dziuba.maciej]

Thanks for the answer mspeer!  UV's were set fine and I rendered out an image with an inverted ramp before but it wasn't working as well.

I made a new example and the problem repeats. It turns out that Shadow Opacity affects only Shadow Color and leaves the rest of the black shadow on the image - please look at the attached screenshots.

[mspeer]

Hi!

What Maya and Arnold version are you using?

This is the result I get:

Please provide your example scene.

[dziuba.maciej]

Hi!
I'm using Maya 2020 and MtoA 4.0.0.

I updated it to MtoA 4.1.0 a second ago but still have this issue. Example scene in the attachment.

[mspeer · Accepted solution]

Hi!

Thanks for the file.

There is no background in your scene.

Please add an image plane to your render camera and set the background color to white.

Currently you set a Background Color in the Arnold Render View, but this is not part of the render process.

You need a "real" background in the scene like an image plane or an aiSkydomeLight.

[dziuba.maciej]

Great! Thanks for your time and patience.