Moho Forum

If this has been asked before my apologies, if it is already implemented please tell me where to find it.

I would like to turn shadow receiving on and off for each layer. Sometimes I'd want a shadow from object A to appear on object B but not on C and/or the background. Most 3D apps have this cast/receive shadow option, it seems possible to put it in Moho, just like you can turn off camera movement.

Reindert.
www.nobudgetvideo.com

You really can't think of Moho's shadow effect and 3D shadows in the same way. Moho shadows are like drawing a simple drop shadow in Photoshop - if a layer is on top of another layer, it will cover up the lower one. You can control this somewhat with layer masking.

This is really different from 3D shadows, where the shadow is computed for each point in the scene, based on light direction and the arrangement of objects. In that case, you can easily choose to ignore shadows for certain objects. In the Moho/Photoshop case, the shadow is part of a layer, and basic compositing says that it must cover up what's beneath it.

Hmmm, couldn't just the shadow optionally be added as a separate layer?

I guess that would make what nobudget's trying to do possible?

You can alwyas create your own shadow layer, but it would still involve some masking trickery in order to have the shadow appear over some layers and not others.

I'll try to get what I want with masking and I haven't tried the new masking options yet, maybe that will get me where I want.
At the moment I use Moho more as a video compositing tool than an animation program. The ability to load a video background and composite .PNG image layers gives me a lot of possibilites that other software can't manage. For instance I'd use a photo still of a person and move it with bones. With short shots you can get very realistic results. And if I could cast shadows on certain objects but leave the background unaffected it will make it more convincing. But I'll try to figure out an alternative way. I can understand implementing this feature will take too much time and it's too uncommon for general use.

Thanks,

Reindert.
www.nobudgetvideo.com