"Another Corner in Winslow" + a tip on ground shadows

Started by Speedster, November 04, 2012, 04:42:01 PM

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Speedster

Hi all;

In my previous post (http://keyshot.com/forum/index.php/topic,4736.0.html) Egon made some great suggestions on how to darken ground shadows, which all of us face often.  Thanks, Egon! 

I tried a slightly different approach on my "Time Warp- Another Corner in Winslow" rendering.  I first Rendered the beauty shot, and for this I used the Effects Vignette on the Settings tab.  Then I disabled the vignette and pulled a clown pass as a TIFF with alpha channel.  Dropped the clown TIFF into Photoshop, "Placed" the beauty shot and linked the layers.  Copy and hide the clown layer for safety sake.  Then select and delete the clown part of the copied layer.  Move the new "shadow only" layer above the beauty shot and use either levels or a curve adjustment to darken the ground shadow to suit.  Bingo!

Bill G

DriesV

#1
Bill,

To show you how I typically control ground shadow intensity, I have uploaded a PSD file.

Basically it boils down to rendering a beauty and B/W flat pass.
I then import the beauty pass into PS and make a copy on top of it. I use the flat render pass as a layer mask on the copied layer to extract just the components without ground shadows. I put original imported layer to blend mode multiply. I make copies of that layer and play with opacity levels to control ground shadow intensity.
This method works very well for me.

Dries

DriesV

#2
Same goes for ground reflections...

Of course all of this masking becomes obsolete when Luxion decides to give us shadow & reflection passes lovely embedded in our rendered TIFFs... *wink* *wink*  ;)

Dries

Speedster

Thanks from all of us, Dries!  Actually very similar to my approach, but it seems simpler.  And I agree- add my additional *wink*!
Bill G

Deacon

That's the same method I use Dries and it works quite well. Yes, it would be a treat if Keyshot would export ground shadows and ground reflections on a separate layer, but for now, this method satisfies the need.

Paul

DriesV

#5
Glad to have been of service!

@KeyShot moderators: maybe there should be a tutorial section in the Share subforum?
A lot of useful hints & tips get scattered around the forum too much I think...

Dries

swashbuckler

Thanks for uploading the files, it's always nice to see some workflows!

Speedster

Quote@KeyShot moderators: maybe there should be a tutorial section in the Share subforum?
A lot of useful hints & tips get scattered around the forum too much I think...

Great idea!  How about it, Thomas?
Bill G