Cast shadows

[Orkman]

One more question for today.

I have some text casting a shadow onto a plane. Is there a way to have the plane be invisible but still show the shadow?

I have 3 objects. Text, plane and a backdrop of the photo I am compositing the text to. I woudl like to make it so the text casts a shadow onto the plane, but the plane is invisible so that it is not seen. but it looks as if the shadow is on the building?

I tried to make the plane "unseen by camera" but then the shadow doesn't appear.

Thanks!

[Oracle77]

um... if you have 'unseen by camera' checked, and 'unseen by rays', and still have 'cast chadow' checked, and ray trace shadows on, theres no reason it shouldnt work out.
maybe you dont have 'receive shadow' checked for the plane? or any other objects?

[Orkman]

Yeah I double checked everything and still no go. Thanks for the help though.

[Oracle77]

i got another idea! if you set the color map of the plane to be the backdrop picture, with front projection, youll have a picture with some shadows on it!

[Orkman]

DOH! I like that idea, but the actual photo is in perspective, so it gets really skewed. But maybe ill just retake the photo straight on and then make the perspective in Lightwave!

Thanks man. I lived near Lethbridge, Alberta for 10 years, beautiful up there.

[Orkman]

WAIT! You are right! It works perfectly. Thanks so much for the help!

[Orkman]

One more. How do I adjust the fuzziness of the raytraced shadow? I know how to do it on "shadow map" but what about raytraced?

Thanks man, you have helped me a ton!

[Oracle77]

raytraced you actually have to set the light type to area. This pretends its an array of points, making a bunch of shadows, overlaying them, and getting a general fuzzy feeling to it.
Good luck man!