Turning off an Objects Cast Shadows

[barnes2000]

I have an extruded object, and I want to disable Casting Shadows for just this object...how? I want other objects to cast shadows, just not this one.

[Ray Libby]

You do this through the texture. Right click on the texture in the resource browser, choose edit, uncheck cast shadows.

[barnes2000]

Ray,

I did do this, but still no luck. Let me break it down to help. I have a soundstage with sets and lights and what not all around. To speed up the renderings I am making for WIP showings, but still have depth, I through in a couple of Directional Lights. I just added the permanent grid above everything to represent the ceiling height, but I get an awful shadow of the grid across everything. So I created a new Texture with no attributes other than Object Attribute for Color, and I unchecked Cast Shadow. I applied the texture to the grid and I still see a shadow in Final Renderworks.

[Ray Libby]

I'm not sure, it works for me. Could you paste the minimal amount of data into a new file and post it here?

[Dave Donley]

Hello barnes2000:

Objects with None fill (or 3D lines which are unfilled) do not take textures, maybe that has something to do with it?

[barnes2000]

Not the case here. The grid was made by drawing a vertical rectangle at about 6in X 80feet and duplicate array about 30 times. Then I did the same going horizontal. All the rectangles had a brown fill and black outline. I then selected all the rectangles and used Add Surface to weld them all together. Next, I extruded the object 6 inches. I now have my grid which looks like 6"x6" beams making the grid. The attribute is still brown fill and black outline. Then I made a new Renderworks Texture, and the only thing I did was uncheck Cast Shadows. I applied the texture to the 3D grid, just as I have applied other textures to other 3D objects, but it still cast shadows. Could it be that Directional lights do not obey shadow attributes the way other lights do?

[Dave Donley]

What render mode? Your technique should work in the RW modes, but I'm not sure that the OpenGL mode would pay attention to the non-cast-shadows option.

[barnes2000]

This is in Final RW.

[barnes2000]

I figured this out. For some reason the Shadow options of a texture (Cast and Receive) do not work on an Extruded object, but if I convert to 3D polygons, they do function. Not sure if this a bug or something that was fixed in 2009.

[Dave Donley]

Hello again Scott:

Could you please email me a copy of the file?

Thanks for the help,

Dave Donley

dave@nemetschek.net

[barnes2000]

Here is the before and after.

[barnes2000]

Hello again Scott:

Could you please email me a copy of the file?

Thanks for the help,

Dave Donley

dave@nemetschek.net

Dave,

It's 41MB.

[Dave Donley]

How about just the grid?

[barnes2000]

I've already converted it to 3D polys. Did you want that one, or should I make the extruded one again and send it?