LuxCoreRender Forums

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

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.

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.

modhob wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 9:48 pm ...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.

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.

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