shadow catcher

[modhob]

hi,

i have something working using a shadow catcher. Is there a way to change the opacity/darkness etc of the shadow....without affecting the object casting the shadow. I can change the color of the shadow by changing the diffuse color of the plane material. But it's always semi-transparent. Is the shadow entirely dependent on the HDRI chosen? That doesn't seem right.

I am using an HDRI as lighting and can't seem to change those shadow properties. I tried using a different layer with the shadow catcher but couldn't get it to work. Basically the lighting wouldn't affect that layer for some reason

any help w screenshots is greatly appreciated

I'm using blender 2.8

[kintuX]

First, check the note above (in red) and also specify which LuxCore version you're using with Blender 2.8.
Can't you use newer LTS versions (3.3x & 3.6.x) w/ LuxCore 2.61 or 2.71 respectively?

Otherwise, yes, shadow color depends on lighting conditions & surface properties.

BTW
You should modify/play w/ shadow opacity in compositing.

[modhob]

Ok I made a very simply scene whereby I simply want the monkey shadow on it's own layer so I can change it's opacity or do whatever else with it.

I can't upload the scene here because it's too big (the .exr file).

You can download the scene here:

https://gurglurator.com/blendertest.zip

The lux version is 2.2. I can't upgrade to newer versions because I am still using windows 7.

[kintuX]

...I simply want the monkey shadow on it's own layer so I can change it's opacity or do whatever else with it.
...

Check "Holdout" on Suzanne's material output, that way you'll only get its shadow.

[modhob]

The only place I see holdout is in the outliner, where you can hide from render etc. There is a holdout there, but I can't seem to select it for anything but a collection. So if I put suzanne in her own collection, I can toggle holdout on that collection. But it doesn't do anything to the render.

Are you talking about the same spot, or a node? Because I can't find holdout in the material output node. Just shadow catcher option.

[kintuX]

Ah, yeah, it's newer than what you've got, a 2.5 addition...