Shadow plane blocking HDR lighting

[wheelpros]

I hate to keep asking these crazy questions but when I make a shadow catcher a diffuse material and the 'matte' clicked it stops the lighting from coming thru the ground plane. Is it possible to have the lighting come thru that plane?

Carter

[face_off]

I hate to keep asking these crazy questions but when I make a shadow catcher a diffuse material and the 'matte' clicked it stops the lighting from coming thru the ground plane. Is it possible to have the lighting come thru that plane?

You might be able to get this by unticking Shadow Visibility on the ground plane mesh (tick Live Geometry Update first). If not, do it by rendering out 2 layers and compositing. Do the nornal render with the ground plane invisible. Then for the ground shadows, tick Kernel->Alpha Channel, assigning the ground plane render layer 2, then enable Render Layer and render out the Black Shadows pass.

Paul