OTOY Forums

hi Paul.
Previously in Octane v.4.5.0.111 we were using Diffuse material with shadow catcher ON. We also applied mask in opacity channel - to controll ground shadow and keep it away from edges. Now, if I try to use same technique in Octane v.2019.1.4.115 - it doesn't work - if I put image mask in Opacity channel , shadow catcher doesn't work anymore. I see that there's a specific Material type for this "Shadow Catcher" but it doesn't have an Opacity channel, where I can put texture mask.
Question: how can we have a Shadow Catcher with Opacity channel, so we can control how far shadows go??

Thanks,
Igor

Paul, here's a couple of examples why we were using shadow catcher with opacity map.

When using Shadow Catcher , it's hard to see where your shadows fall and how far it goes. And final renders in our case always composited in some presentation with lots of renders. When you try to re-scale & arrange the renders you may end up with visible edges (cause shadows fall on them). See example on the screenshot below, after re-scaling the render you can see "edges" because shadows.

To eliminate this issue, we were using mask in opacity channel. And to see this in Rhino viewport we have a copy of our plane (but with Rhino material & texture). This way we have a visual representation in the viewport where our shadow catcher will be faded to white by Opacity map.

So, it would be great if you can help us get this feature back - Opacity channel for Shadow Catcher.

Thanks,

Igor

Hi Igor

This is a general Octane question (which unfortunately I don't know the answer to). I suggest asking your question in the general Octane forum.

Thanks

Paul