Been on winter vacation, just came back and am happy to see that ic6 is out!

My first of many questions to come is this....

I would like to have a prop on the stage and light it in a way that it casts a shadow on other props. This is great so far, but is it possible to hide the prop so that only its shadow is displayed. This would be HUGE.

So far any attempts to hide this prop will also hide the shadow


Ibis Fernandez   |   (available for hire)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professional Animator, Filmmaker | Creator of the highest quality (modular) G2 rigs for cartoon animator and developer of Toon Titan and Puppet Producer 
Author of Flash Animation and Cartooning: A Creative Guide
>>> be sure to check out http://toontitan.com for professional grade assets, templates, and custom tools for Cartoon Animator and more.

I'm not sure if there is a "correct" option (have an invisible object cast a shadow), but there is a slim chance this trickery might do the job...

What if you have your object out of camera view, located so it casts the shadow where you want it?  You'd need really "sharp" shadow outlines to make up for the distance between the object and where the shadow lands.

Might be worth a try.

Here's a lame sketch, drawn in MSPaint with a mouse...

---

iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

I was able to get "real close" by taking the "Opacity" to 1 and the "Shadow Threshold" to 0. You'll have to do that for each Diffusion Map of the avatar...Upper, Lower, etc.

It also might help to take the "Strength" of the Diffusion Map all the way down or delete it all together and depending of the overall lighting of your scene make the Material Settings Diffuse Color black or white. This should work for a prop as well as an avatar which I used.


Click here to go to my YouTube Channel filled with iClone Tutes and Silly Stuff

Visit ANIMATED PROJECTIONS Powered by iCLONE

Intel Core i7 3960X @ 3300MHz Overclocked to 4999.7 MHz Sandy Bridge 24.0GB DDR3 @ 833MHz Graphic Display HP ZR30w 
GeForce GTX 980Ti 6GB  Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1 ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. P9X79 WS (LGA2011)

All Maps turned to Jet Black..except the Mouth Cavity and the Teeth. No Specular, No Bum Maps.. 2 Sided for all.

Only the Shadow knows for sure what lurks there in the darkness of the minds of men.

SKYPE ID: rc.650

http://city.reallusion.com/store/ModuleExpand.aspx?id=GS634545170497417354&mdid=18866

http://city.reallusion.com/ContentTag.aspx?tagname=Cricky&AuthorID=20081020688550191201#]Reallusion Store Content

" If I had Alzheimer's (Old Timers), would I know it? "

I wonder if you could do it in two passes that you then mask together. It is possible to export just a mask of the avatar. So if you shoot the scene first with your avatar casting the shadow, then again without the avatar, and a third just rendering the mask, and then using the mask to display the "clean background inside it and the shadowed background outside it.

Not sure if this will work in IC6, but in IC5 if you moved an item "below the floor" it would cast a shadow onto the floor or terrain.

This was asked a while ago, which of course challenged some of us to find a solution.

My approach at the time was what Viking is suggesting now: placing the character outside of the camera range.

To make sure that the shadow would be believable, I matched the shadow that was cast be the remote character with the shadow that would have been emitted with the character in place.

This was the setup: the yellow markers indicate the character in place (now hidden).

This was originally done with a drop shadow, but IC6 doesn't have that anymore. However, a self-cast shadow works also, as shown here. The light is a directional light.

Here is the resulting shadow:

The green background is there because of the original request, I believe.

---

@Animagic,

Wow, that looks just like my sketch (only a lot better, of course). 

You're a genuine wizard.  Thanks!

---

iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

@Viking: YOU did have an idea how to do it that would have worked! That is very encouraging!

---

Those are some great suggestions. I'm still wondering what this self cast shadow thing is, cant quite wrap my head around it. In that example with the green background, it looks like there is an object selected "but invisible" and it's shadow is showing, is that whats going on? If so, how was that done?

Anyhee, basically I accidentally stumbled into what could turn out to be a great way to cel shade characters...






Ibis Fernandez   |   (available for hire)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professional Animator, Filmmaker | Creator of the highest quality (modular) G2 rigs for cartoon animator and developer of Toon Titan and Puppet Producer 
Author of Flash Animation and Cartooning: A Creative Guide
>>> be sure to check out http://toontitan.com for professional grade assets, templates, and custom tools for Cartoon Animator and more.