Ground Plane (Shadow Catcher) Native - With HDR Projector, Reflection and Shadow
Hi guys, first of all I wanted to say that it's amazing what you've been doing with Blender, it's amazing software.
ABOUT THIS NEW TOOL:
This is a tool that is present in Maya and 3Ds Max that I have already used and that makes it very easy to create ground planes to receive shadows and reflections in a simple way, where you can project the ground based on image. This is amazing for VFX and product rendering, unfortunately Blender's Ground Plane (Shadow Catcher) only generates shadows, it would be amazing if it could project the background image to generate more realistic reflections on objects that are on this ground plane, possibility of generate leftovers and reflections separately and together.
EXAMPLE:
The video below shows a Maya tool that does exactly what I'm talking about, and you can generate materials with shadows and reflections and compose as you wish, in this case this Maya tool is on the nodes, which could be a nice option for Blender, maybe a node called Image Projection where it projects over an image or even over Blender's HDR World (that would be awesome).
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS IN BLENDER:
There is how to do this within Blender with alternative solutions, but it all seems like a Work around, it's not intuitive and a lot of people use it and need it in their daily lives, it would be amazing if this existed natively in Blender. Here are two videos of workarounds, but I still think what Maya and Max do to design a specific plane something better is more intuitive. Examples within Blender to make: youtube.com/watch
I EVEN DEVELOPED AN ADDO TO CREATE HDR:
blender-addons.gumroad.com/l/dome_light_for_blender
But I really miss these tools in my daily life and the way they exist seems to me a lot like a workaround and I know you can do even better than I said.
Thank you very much and great work everyone!
1 Comment
This is also a way to hack this: blenderartists.org/t/cycles-ground-for-hdri-environment-aka-shadow-light-catcher/636320
But it only works for stationary cameras (if you move the camera you can see the floor sliding).