shadow on a turning face or moving body how ?

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aji
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shadow on a turning face or moving body how ?

Post by aji »

shadow on a turning face or on a moving body how ?

How can we create a shadow on turning face or on a moving body.
( I am not hinting about perspective shadow)
I tried with layers with transparency. Is there any mask tricks can be used for the shadow creation.
How can create shadow changing as its light source's position changes
please reply and share your ideas

Thanks in advance

aji
Danimal
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Re: shadow on a turning face or moving body how ?

Post by Danimal »

I've always used shading on the fill of the face to give it the appearance of a shadow. I've never animated it though. If the character moves, I change the shading, but never actually move the shadow. I'd imagine that could be done with a shape and masking though.
~Danimal
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heyvern
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Re: shadow on a turning face or moving body how ?

Post by heyvern »

I've been using shape shading effect and layer shading effect to keep the shadow "on the same side" so to speak.

In the past I've created shading as an actual overlay shape color with transparency, but then if you "flip" or turn the character the shading light source doesn't change because it's drawn in one position.

Using shape effect shading works well because the "light source" or angle won't change unless you animate it. As the head or layer moves and rotates the shading moves realistically keeping the same light source.

Layer shading on the character parent group layer also works well but can be tricky to use because it "groups" all of the layers together as a solid shape before applying the shading. So for example a character could have a group layer shading applied but if the arm passes over the body the shading will not stay on the arm because the whole body shape is combined and the arm loses it's shading. Using layer shading on individual layers is the same as using shading shape effect and the shading is not "smoothly blended" across the shapes.

In one case that worked great but was difficult to animate because of layer ordering maintenance, I created duplicate body shapes just for shading. This involved masking and not really using shading at all but soft edge fills masked to simulate a shading direction. I used "mulitply" and "add" layer blending modes for shadows and highlights to create a really nice shading effect over the entire character. It looked great but required a lot of layer ordering to keep it all working correctly.

I think there is also the possibility of doing this type of thing in multiple "passes" and compositing in post. You could render out the main color pass without any shading, then render out highlight and shadow passes and composite in a separate program like Adobe Premier or AE. The reason this could be easier is that creating those passes for shading doesn't rely on complex masking and layer blending modes. You can use the same "ink" effects in a program like Adobe Premiere to either lighten or darken the layer.
aji
Posts: 86
Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:42 pm
Location: india

Re: shadow on a turning face or moving body how ?

Post by aji »

thanks heyvern for such a detailed answer

i cannot understand what is
shape shading effect :roll:
and
layer shading effect :roll:

if this two term is clear
I think every thing will be clear :D

once again thanks
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heyvern
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Re: shadow on a turning face or moving body how ?

Post by heyvern »

Select a shape.

In the style palette there are dropdowns for adding "Effects" to the fill shape. One of those is "Shading". You can have two effects per shape. I often use both, one for the highlight one for the shadow.

If you open the layer settings, there is a tab for Shadows. One of the options is "Shading". it adds a shading effect to the entire layer.
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Re: shadow on a turning face or moving body how ?

Post by Danimal »

The shape shading effect is the one I've used. It makes shadows appear on an object.

The layer shading makes object appear to case a shadow. The shadow stays uniform and doesn't react to a light source or depth in the background so I've never found much use for this one, though I'm sure others have.
~Danimal
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