I have a bunch of comps with multiple GS elements (talents shot individually, then composed together in a close-standing group.) I need to have soft shadows on the talents standing behind the FG talents.
I’d like to do this interactively in Action, without doing upstream stuff on the BG talent fills, so I can see quickly and fluidly how and where the shadows interact as I move the elements around.
I’ve tried some goofy front source stuff with no luck. The other route is the 3d shadow casters. But the casters involve setting everyting up in z-space, and I’d have less control over the precise look, masking and blending of the shadows.
Any ideas on a workaround for this? Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.
I have done this in the shot below. I don’t exactly remember the amount of control I had, but for a short shot like this it worked great for me with cast shadows on different layers.
It does seem the shadow cast node should be able to do this, albeit you may need multiple action nodes to stack the rows. See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MKiJb9ZwZA
A cheaper trick that might still work - in Action draw a loose mask around the FG actor (or recycle the alpha with some matte ops). Do a 1pt track on the FG actor and connect the mask to that with some erode & offset. Use this a matte for a color grade node on the BG actor. If you layer the actions appropriately no additional masking/roto should be needed.
This wouldn’t have proper depth fall-off if the shadow hits multiple rows, or if the BG actors are big enough that their depth would be perciptle. But if you need to a quick cheat it’s worth a try.
I think it can be even simpler than that as shadow nodes work with layer priorities. Turn Z sort off and you just move the priorities around so that the shadow casts on all nodes that should be behind the parent surface .
You can set up some sort of control axis that an expression connects to each shadow axis so you have one global control node for the shadow cast. You can animate that if needed to reverse any camera move that affects the shadow positioning. You can use it or another control axis for transparency and softness.
Sometimes I think we can overcomplicate a situation such as this. However, the above won’t work if your shadows cast light on the ground as well as the people behind. Then there needs to be a 3D shadow cast used of course and it needs to be as complex as it needs to be.
Thanks, everyone.
Now I remember why I don’t rely on shadow casters. I finally got it set up and working ok, go to render, and it does not render. It’ll also just disappear from preview in Action, and i have to hide and unhide it several times for it to show up again. Hit render, and it will not render.
I remember that this was another tool that had issues from the beginning that were never addressed, and it is not a reliable tool.
I’m doing the poor man’s workaround by using selectives and tracked gmasks – but what a goofy thing to have to do for a tool that should just work. Not to mention that animating gmasks to keep the shape of a changing surface’s shape is laborious.