[help] Matte & Shadow fails to render (+ general shadow problems)
polycounter lvl 11
Hello all, my first post here and one requiring your help.
Major problem: Matte & Shadow fails to render at all. Now while I can't currently upload any images to illustrate the problem, I have followed every tutorial I've found. Please correct me if I've done anything wrong, but this is what I've done (using Max 2010).
Environment - Set colour to deep grey
Matte/Shadow Material - Set up as defaulted and attached to a plane
Object - omni/spotlight placed above it, object placed above aforementioned plane
Renderer - Scanline, no advanced illumination
Generally, followed to the letter, using the tutorial found in Learning Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 Foundation, to the exception of the environment & render settings, which weren't mentioned.
So, I hit the render button, and........
nothing
All I get is the sphere that I've rendered as the test object, with the light working upon it (and that being shadowed) but past it no shadows are being rendered on the matte & shadow plane, and I see only the deep grey that I've set the background to be.
This brings me onto my second problem: Shadows don't appear to be rendering really at all. Using the same scene as the first, I replaced the plane and sphere's materials with two standards (one a clay colour, other default grey), with the intention of getting shadows from the object to form on the plane. With no changes to any other settings, I hit render, and all I find is an orange circle with a white background, no shadows forming whatsoever, making it look like the sphere is hovering in mid-space.
If my description has been unclear in any way, later I can provide screenshots illustrating the problem and also the scene if it would help you to find out what's going wrong.
I appreciate any and all help, and many thanks in advance.
-Lucky
Major problem: Matte & Shadow fails to render at all. Now while I can't currently upload any images to illustrate the problem, I have followed every tutorial I've found. Please correct me if I've done anything wrong, but this is what I've done (using Max 2010).
Environment - Set colour to deep grey
Matte/Shadow Material - Set up as defaulted and attached to a plane
Object - omni/spotlight placed above it, object placed above aforementioned plane
Renderer - Scanline, no advanced illumination
Generally, followed to the letter, using the tutorial found in Learning Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 Foundation, to the exception of the environment & render settings, which weren't mentioned.
So, I hit the render button, and........
nothing
All I get is the sphere that I've rendered as the test object, with the light working upon it (and that being shadowed) but past it no shadows are being rendered on the matte & shadow plane, and I see only the deep grey that I've set the background to be.
This brings me onto my second problem: Shadows don't appear to be rendering really at all. Using the same scene as the first, I replaced the plane and sphere's materials with two standards (one a clay colour, other default grey), with the intention of getting shadows from the object to form on the plane. With no changes to any other settings, I hit render, and all I find is an orange circle with a white background, no shadows forming whatsoever, making it look like the sphere is hovering in mid-space.
If my description has been unclear in any way, later I can provide screenshots illustrating the problem and also the scene if it would help you to find out what's going wrong.
I appreciate any and all help, and many thanks in advance.
-Lucky
Replies
I use XnView to view images which lets you toggle the alpha with Ctrl-H, pretty handy. The max viewport render window lets you see each channel, if you check on display alpha you should see your shadows.
To test you can also set your environment background 8 to another color besides black.
But changing it to another color besides black will tint your shadows.
Final output with environment color set to black.
Standard material on the box objects.
Default matte/shadow on a plane underneath.
Two omni's set to cast shadows like MoP pointed out.
If all that checks out, then check each objects properties (select > right click > object properties) for the visible objects in the scene (in the case of this example the gray boxes), to make sure they are set to cast and receive shadows.
Normally I turn of shadow casting for the matte/shadow objects because I want them to capture shadows but not cast them.
So am I to assume that by checking the box for shadow casting, this will affect normal shadows and matte/shadow?
Regardless, thank you all very much for your help
Many thanks, that was what was wrong. Shadows and all that are rendering fine now!
I'm currently redoing all my renders and will post them in a WIP
-Lucky