3

In Blender 2.79b, I'm trying to render this motion tracked scene with a simple cube then a plane as a shadow catcher. But when I render it, the shadow catcher is invisible but seems to be brightening the area it is in. You can clearly see it with the bright square under the cube. I'm pretty new to Blender so all help is welcome.

I cannot figure out what's causing this.

photo1

The scene in 3D viewport:

scene

Node tree:

enter image description here

bmanner
  • 31
  • 3
  • Could you show your compositing nodetree? – Carlo May 06 '18 at 01:28
  • is film>transparency enabled (https://i.stack.imgur.com/yR1He.png)? How are you compositing the rendered image on top of the video? Please use the [edit] link at the bottom of your question (https://i.stack.imgur.com/lXFuK.png) and add more information on how you set up your project. –  May 06 '18 at 01:37
  • Also make sure your 3D scene light vaguely matches the filmed video. Looks like it may be too brightly lit – Duarte Farrajota Ramos May 06 '18 at 02:54
  • @cegaton Film Transparency is enabled. Also, I haven't done any compositing through nodes to render the image over the video, I believe it is doing so because I have the video opened in the Motion Tracking view. – bmanner May 06 '18 at 04:28
  • @cegaton Sorry, didn't realize there were nodes for it lol. Just updated the post with the node tree. – bmanner May 06 '18 at 04:46
  • Try a compositing node setup like the one in this answer: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/87314/1853 –  May 06 '18 at 05:54
  • 1
    @cegaton Thank you so much! That seemed to fix the problem. – bmanner May 06 '18 at 14:38
  • 1
    @bmanner can you please write an answer detailing what you did? It might help others that have a similar issue. Please read: https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/self-answer –  May 06 '18 at 15:16
  • 1
    @cegaton Will do! – bmanner May 06 '18 at 15:44

1 Answers1

2

I came across this thread when searching for a solution to the same exact problem as the OP. I tried various fixes, included the "simplified" node set up mentioned above by cegaton. Nothing worked.

The node setup posted by bmanner is the same node setup I get when I use a shadow catcher plane in Blender 2.79b (Mac version). I'm a rank beginner with nodes, so reducing the three "inputs" down to the two shown in the fix was not working for me.

Through all the playing around, however, I did find a very simple fix. By checking the "clamp" checkbox in both of the "add" nodes, everything renders properly. The shadow catcher no longer brightens everything it touches. No other aspect of the scene seems to be affected in the render. No idea why or how this works, but it does.

I realize this is an old thread. Since I haven't seen this solution anywhere else, I figured this would be a good place to mention it. The OP's screen shot is attached, with the boxes noted. I hope this helps someone.

enter image description here

Joe
  • 21
  • 3