Use Background material in Viewport 2.0 creates transparent not opaque shadows

[Anonymous]

Hello, I am trying to create a shadow catching object in Maya, just a polygon plane that receives the shadow from an object that I will be rendering with viewport 2.0. After I assign the Use Background texture to the plane and set up a spotlight casting depth map shadows, the shadows that are cast on the plane are about 50% transparent and not solid black. Does anyone know how to make the shadows more opaque?

Thanks again,

Shane

[doodski]

I don't think viewport renders the use backround feature the same as software. Using the 'use backround' in software will catch the shadow in the alpha channel and you can turn off primary invis in render stats of your casting object to isolate the shadow only. In viewport the best I could accomplish is the use backround for catcher and make the backround balack or white (probably white) and then make the object casting a solid matte black or white so (same as backround) so that you have manually created an alpha to use as a matte or stencil for shadows in comp. the opacity of shadow is controlled in the use backround and /or light options under shadow

[mspeer]

Hi!

By default, if you assign the Use Background material to the plane (don't use "Use Background" as texture input) and adding a single spotlight with default settings, the shadow displayed in viewport should be black and 100% opaque.

What could change this:

A) A second light, for example an Ambient Light.

B) Changing the shadow color of the spotlight.

[Anonymous]

Hey there,

Thanks for the reply. Yeah the problem is if you add more lights to the
scene, even if they aren't illuminating the shadow, the shadow will become
transparent and sometimes it will just dissappear completely. It must be a
bug in viewport 2.0.

Your idea would work, I think, for ground shadows if you only wanted
shadows from one light source. I'll give it a try.

Cheers,

S

[mspeer]

Hi!

You are right. Every additional light affects the shadow. Using Light-Linking also has no effect.

Please report this problem (bug?) to Autodesk.
Help -> Speak Back -> Report a Problem

(Keep in mind that the background material feature is primary a software render feature for high quality compositing, although i have to admit that there might be some situations where a hardware rendering could benefit from it.

You say the shadow sometimes disappears, the Limit for simultaneous rendered lights for Viewport 2.0 defaults to a value of 8. So if you add more, some are skipped.