Render Passes rendering?

[Builtdown]

I can´t get Render passes to work:
I have an outdoor scene that I would like to render with a Beauty pass and with Shadows.

1. In Octane Render Target I "Enable Layers rendering"
2. I add Render Passes node
3. Then in Render passes node I add Beauty>Reflection, Layers>Layer Shadows and Layers>Layer ID
4. I then start IPR and see the Beauty render normally. In IPR I select under Beauty-tab "Reflection". I see only reflected surfaces. Cool! Then I select Render Layer ID. I see the black bg and red alpha objects. Cool! Then I select Shadows. I only get white screen with no shadows. Not cool!

What´s going on?

[Builtdown]

I hope someone can help me with this.

The problem I have had for years is that when I render especially exterior shots, the shadows are too dark and the clients hope for lighter shadows.
I have attached a raw render of one exterior shot. The balconies are really dark and I would like to have lighter shadows all over.

Someone probably says that I need to adjust exposure and gamma, but when I increase exposure and lower gamma, I get always washed up results.
What I have done is I first render a beauty shot and then another render with all shadows turned off. Then I mix those in Photoshop. But the render with no shadows takes really long to render (don´t know why...?).

So if I could get the Shadow Render Pass to work, maybe I could get to adjust the shadows with that.

I know that Octane is "real world"-based renderer, but one thing I would like to see in future versions would be the ability to adjust the amount of shadows straight from Environment Node.

[Builtdown]

Juangon, please check this question by me.

[juanjgon]

Sorry for the delay. I was on a short vacation break. Have you tried the new "Shadow Pass" pass available in the latest plugin build? It should help to get the shadows mask to adjust the shadows in post without use render layers.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[Builtdown]

Thanks for the idea.
That might work. I will try it with next project.

I made a test render with shadow pass, then in Photoshop inverted it and used it with Screen-blending mode and 10% layer opacity. Looks promising.

[FrankPooleFloating]

Screen might work in a pinch, but screen tends to wash out details or screw with contrast, imho. I have done this same trick, but rather used it inverted as a mask for adjustment layer (levels, curves etc).

For anyone who does not know how to get crap like this into their layer mask in PS, do the following:

Edit:

Copy > Make a new Channel (forgot this step) > Paste into Channel (if rgb, becomes gray when pasted into single channel) > CTRL+Click thumb in that channel to make a (soft) selection of white pixels > Invert selection and fill black into layer mask of adjustment layer (or any layer mask). Invert mask if needed. (or start off with solid black in mask before filling with white from selection).

*I use this method for all kinds of stuff. If there is a better/faster way to put b/w into masks, please advise. Maybe something with Quick Mask, which I never use?...

[Builtdown]

Thanks. This worked out pretty well.


But why isn´t the layer shadows working? Is there some problems with those or am I just not doing it right?