FumeFX + Matte/Shadow material.

#1

Well, suffice it to say I’m new. I’ve been working around with After Effects for about two years now, and just recently got FumeFX. I was trying to render out an image to test the matte shadow material with the scanline renderer. (Unfortunately, I don’t have the means of getting a new renderer at the current time)
My findings were rather disappointing, the matte shadow material is making any voxels on top/in front of the material, 100% transparent. It doesn’t properly cast a shadow either, it looks like a very pixely, broken up colored cast, with no alpha at all.

Examples:

This one is just a very simple plane object under the voxels, standard material.


This is what happens when I change the plane material to matte shadow. Come to think of it, the concept of that strangely coloured shadow being cast, doesn’t make much sense to me, on account of there being a light source there to project shadows the opposite way.

All in all, I would greatly appreciate help on the matter, as I am ultimately stumped.
Thanks in advance.

#2

Have you clicked ‘apply atmospherics at object level’ on in the matte material?

#3

Reneice why don’t you use mental ray?

Cheers.

#4

I have recently, and it provides the same poorly displayed effect as above.

Unfortunately the past year or so, I have basically been learning with only Scanline, so I don’t know how any materials and setup work for Raytrace. From my understanding, its somewhat more complex than Scanline (with FumeFX), and other renderers folks are using.
Basically, I use scanline for the matte/shadow material, so I can mask things properly, and I can’t get that similar material to work with Raytrace.

#5

What kind of lights and shadows do you use? Try the standard spotlights and the AB shadow map.

#6

I’m currently using standard lights, omni, and spot. Omni isn’t casting shadows, spot is. If I disable cast shadows, the pixely shadow obviously goes away, but so does the feel of depth in the smoke. However if I tell the matte/shadow material to disable receiving shadows, the pixely shadow is gone, and the smoke retains its effects, shadows and all.

Although a solution, the problem is no surface around heavy smoke is taking on shadows, so the feel of believing that the smoke may be real, is eliminated. I’m unsure if scanline will allow me to properly attain the desired effect I’m looking for.

Edit:
Attached the following images for visual purpose.


#7

It is possible to use the alpha of a RE Shadow pass as your shadow pass from a Matte/Shadow object. Obviously you would need to comp it in but it does work.

#8

Thanks for the response Johnny.
Actually, just before checking back here for any responses, I started playing with the alpha channels on the matte/shadow material in the shadow parameters, and apparently by simply switching the RGB to 1,1,1 as opposed to 0,0,0 solves the issue, but still leaves the shadow colour black.

So it would seem the issue is resolved. I’ll be testing it in a larger composition later this evening, and if any problems occur, I’ll most likely be back, haha.

Thanks for the responses folks, I appreciate it.

#9

hi there,
i hope can little help… because i always using matte/shadow material too with fume or atmosphere thinks… and its work fine.

this my setting at matte/shadow material for objects:
i just check ‘apply atmoshpere’ and ‘at objectdepht’…

and at light setting:
i just check ‘on’ at atmosphere shadows

i hope can help.

see my attachs:

#10

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