barkest Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 (edited) In an effort to improve my rendering I have a model I made way back in VW2011. I have been playing around with this for a short-while and I have removed the building from the background but is there a reasonable way to remove shadows? (I want to put them onto another layer so I can then overlay onto a background in PS I have tried several ways so far but nothing too great. A single colour render and then selecting out the shadows in PS is my best effort so far but I may have missed something thank you Edited March 16, 2017 by barkest added more info Quote Link to comment
bcd Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 Select your light source & untick Cast Shadows Each of the Render Styles as well as Open Gl and Custom Renderworks have the option to Show Shadows (or not) eg. View>Rendering>Open GL Options>Use Shadows Quote Link to comment
bcd Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 Note - Textures can be designed to themselves cast shadows or not. This is useful for cases where you want the light to penetrate a surface or where shadows just get in the way eg a lighting instrument lens or lighting truss, or to respect the laws of physics eg a model box. Quote Link to comment
barkest Posted March 16, 2017 Author Share Posted March 16, 2017 thanks bcd I want the shadows but I need to separate them from the render (hope that makes sense) Quote Link to comment
bcd Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 You could turn off colors to create a whiteboard effect and possibly use that as a multiplier layer in PS but I don't think there is a way to isolate the shadows on their own. Take a look at Ambient Occlusion also - it produces a very nice internal corner effect 1 Quote Link to comment
barkest Posted March 16, 2017 Author Share Posted March 16, 2017 Yes that was my option as well just thought someone else might have a better idea. thank you Quote Link to comment
rDesign Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 (edited) What it sounds like you're trying to do is get the shadows from the building & entourage that being cast on the ground surface, which you want to replace with a photo background in Photoshop. Luis's response below is the best method to create a 'shadow pass' in Vw. Another option would be to use the new 2017 Camera Match functionality, I think it would do what you're trying to achieve without having to use Photoshop. Edited March 16, 2017 by rDesign Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Luis M Ruiz Posted March 16, 2017 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted March 16, 2017 I'd try making a copy of that viewport and render it using artistic lines and shadows. Make the lines super thin and make the shadows black. You'll have the model white solid. If you were thinking on using Photoshop then the deleting the whiteness will be easy. 3 Quote Link to comment
barkest Posted March 16, 2017 Author Share Posted March 16, 2017 Thank you Luis I will give it a go. Also, there were two things you said that I have been thinking about: 1. The detail is important 2. Rendering is like painting From that I took an 'old' beach hut render and as time allows I will work on it with those two points in mind. I just added a beach towel over the rail and a blanket on the beach itself for more interest. Following Josh's input as well I will take away all of the sharp edges and also work on making the textures more realistic and 'dirty' as well. Here are the two added items. 1 Quote Link to comment
barkest Posted March 16, 2017 Author Share Posted March 16, 2017 (edited) Ok worked perfectly. Edges set to white and shadow set to red for easy selection. In PS one click solution thank you very much Edited March 16, 2017 by barkest Quote Link to comment
barkest Posted March 16, 2017 Author Share Posted March 16, 2017 (edited) Thank you for the help today. I achieved my first goal which was to separate out the objects and the shadows in a quick and easy way. I have put an image of the results and to help others I have included the .psd file. Please shout if you are interested in this technique thanks beach_hut_cut_out_shadows_and_objects.psd Edited March 16, 2017 by barkest 3 Quote Link to comment
mjm Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 Great solutions, thanks all Quote Link to comment
AlanW Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 (edited) @barkestHi the way i use to seperate the shadows is to create a renderworks Style. We use this to create existing and proposed shadows. We overlay a hidden line viewport of the building over an Esisting shadow viewport over the new shadow viewport. Cant show building but these are the 2 viewports and only renders the shadows and not the building. all done in vectorworks. Attached file has the renderworks style se the resource manager for them. HTH Shadows off.vwx Edited March 16, 2017 by Alan Woodwell 1 Quote Link to comment
Markvl Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 Great solution Alan. Thanks for sharing. Excellent Post to @barkest PS is a good place to add the layered details too like dirt, smudges, ageing etc. Quote Link to comment
barkest Posted March 17, 2017 Author Share Posted March 17, 2017 Thanks Alan, its nice to use the same technique to remove any objects which works really well. Quote Link to comment
Andy Broomell Posted May 12, 2017 Share Posted May 12, 2017 Messing around with the Lines and Shadow artistic render style... Is there a way to control the quality of curved things? See the shadows in the lower part of the screenshot below (OpenGL on top, Artistic RW on bottom). Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted May 13, 2017 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted May 13, 2017 1 hour ago, Andy Broomell said: Messing around with the Lines and Shadow artistic render style... Is there a way to control the quality of curved things? See the shadows in the lower part of the screenshot below (OpenGL on top, Artistic RW on bottom). Not in Fast Renderworks, make a Renderworks Style and set it up the way you like but with curved geometry set to High. I don't usually need Very High for curved geometry, unless it's really close up. Quote Link to comment
Andy Broomell Posted May 13, 2017 Share Posted May 13, 2017 But what about a Renderworks Style that's set to Artistic? Quote Link to comment
zoomer Posted May 13, 2017 Share Posted May 13, 2017 (edited) Is it perhaps controlled by the general mesh quality setting in VW preferences ? Edited May 13, 2017 by zoomer Quote Link to comment
tsw Posted October 27, 2017 Share Posted October 27, 2017 (edited) Has anyone tried playing with the new "Shadow Catcher" shader in VW2018? Looks like it's made for this type of situation. Attached is a test file and the resultant PNG with transparency. One advantage is that you could deform your shadow catcher plane or apply the texture to a site model. This would make the shadows appear to be hitting an irregular surface, which could look more realistic in the final composite. Edit: I tried applying a displacement map to the shadow catcher plane, thinking it would be a quick way to simulate shadows cast on a rough surface like the beach in barkest's file, but unfortunately once you make a texture use Shadow Catcher, it greys everything else out. (You can't have both a Shadow Catcher in the Transparency channel and a displacement map in the Bump channel.) Still a pretty cool new feature though! Shadow Catcher Test.vwx Edited October 27, 2017 by tsw Quote Link to comment
Guest Selin Posted November 29, 2017 Share Posted November 29, 2017 I also came here to mention shadow catcher by design it zeroes everything out but the shadows so a displaced texture (or any other texture) would not work with it. I'm afraid the only way to do it would be to create bumpy geometry. Quote Link to comment
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