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I am trying to create a an image of an object (say a cube) and its shadow, with any other pixel except for the object and shadow being transparent, in Blender 2.7. I need this since I will place the resulting images next to several others in Photoshop later, and also as standalones, in a scientific paper which requires that all images have a transparent background.

I know this question has been asked many times before, but all the answers I found are lacking, namely: this question is similar, but the answer uses a "shadow" output of the layer which I couldn't find (I assume it doesn't exist in 2.7?). On the other hand, this video gives a nice solution in case you are trying to place your objects + shadows on top of an existing image by multiplying outputs, but does not produce an image with a transparent background, and I don't see a way to modify it easily.

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olamundo
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    The shadow pass does exist in 2.7. – gandalf3 Jul 04 '14 at 20:31
  • Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/5160/599 – gandalf3 Jul 04 '14 at 20:55
  • @gandalf3 Thanks, I am quite new to blender, I didn't figure you could add a "shadow" output. I now went to the layers dialogue and ticked the "shadow" tickbox. This added the "shadow" output to the render-layer node, but inspecting it I see that it is simply zero everywhere. Am I still missing something? – olamundo Jul 04 '14 at 21:18
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    Mesh lights won't cast shadows, see http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/5416/599 – gandalf3 Jul 04 '14 at 21:19
  • @gandalf3 Great diagnosis based on symptoms only. you should be a doctor :) Thanks! You prefer to answer this or close it as yet another duplicate? – olamundo Jul 04 '14 at 21:21
  • @gandalf3 - one last question: I changed my light to an area light, but now the "shadow" output outputs a binary mask, of only completely white or completely black patches. The real shadow has a smooth gradient, and according to the other examples this is what I should get from the "shadow" output, no? – olamundo Jul 04 '14 at 21:54
  • That's odd.. I seem to remember that happenening to me a while ago, but never was able to figure out why.. Is it possible you could upload your .blend? – gandalf3 Jul 05 '14 at 00:36

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