Low poly shadows, need halp quick plox

Bruno Afonseca

hi there,
I'm making an art test which I was planning on delivering tonight. It's an animated low poly character (500 tris) and it's pretty much done, but I'm making a simple background and would like to make simple shadows for a better presentation.

I'll send a video (a viewport capture), everything at 100% self ilum, so the shadow would have to be something MacGyver. Already tried making a copy of the model and squashing it, but the skeleton's root moves up and down, and so does the shadow, making it clip into the ground. Anyone has a better idea?

I'm on max 2009 btw!

cryrid

Try opening the function curves and disable the y-pos/animation? (or whatever the Max equivocation would be)

Bruno Afonseca

well I dunno about that since both meshes follow the same skeleton. Tried making a copy of the skeleton but animation doesn't carry on intact to the new one, it comes out all borked... :<

cryrid

Odd that duplicate doesn't duplicate correctly. Maybe there's an option to save the scene as something different, and merge it back with the original?

Mark Dygert

Err... objects with 100% self illumination cast shadows on other objects, they just don't receive any shadows.

The stick on the left is 100% self illuminated.

You might of turned off shadow casting for that object in the objects properties. Or turned off receive shadows for the ground plane? (Select object, right click, object properties, make sure its set to object not layer)

Or maybe the light is set to exclude that object from casting shadows? Or shadows aren't turned on for that light.

If you mean that you can't get shadows to enable in the viewport you need to enable hardware shading, then enable shadows.

cryrid

I think even the environment is self illuminated ('everything at 100% self ilum'). Hence the required hack.

Mark Dygert

Oh in that case, copy the environment or create a small ground plane that follows the character around and apply a matte/shadow material to it.

You probably turn off the shadow casting for the matte/shadow object, but leave receive shadows enabled. Works in a realtime viewport (shown below) and in renders.