<div dir="ltr"><div><div>As Thomas Dinges pointed out it's just a matter of deleting one check in kernel_emission.h to support mesh lights in the shadow pass (or is there more to do, Brecht?). And frankly I don't see any issue with making this the default... every other PB render engine I know take mesh lights into account in the shadow pass.<br>
<br></div>Generally I agree 100% with Matt, a shadow pass should represent all shadows in the scene - and when we use a HDRI to cast them they should be included too. I really hope that we have that (and a shadow catcher) available in the near future as this is crucial for serious compositing in VFX. It's really a bit awkward that we speed up cycles by 30% and then have to use a node setup that doubles our rendering time ;) Until then, I'll try the node setup Brecht posted for simple, non computational expensive scenes.<br>
<br></div>Greetings, Thomas<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2014-05-11 8:35 GMT+02:00 Matthew Heimlich <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:matt.heimlich@gmail.com" target="_blank">matt.heimlich@gmail.com</a>></span>:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">All light sources should contribute to the shadow pass, environment lights included. Some environments with HDRI cast a very distinct shadow. A shadow catcher would indeed be the best option, though, as it could be given its own pass without any additional issues.</div>
<div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5">
<div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, May 10, 2014 at 5:29 PM, Brecht Van Lommel <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:brechtvanlommel@pandora.be" target="_blank">brechtvanlommel@pandora.be</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><p dir="ltr">The mesh lights choice was a bit arbitrary and could be changed. For the environment light, if we included that in the current shadow pass you would basically get ambient occlusion, which is not so useful because you have that already in a pass.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The shadow pass could be changed to handle this case better, which would be roughly the same as implementing a shadow catcher material.</p><span><font color="#888888">
<p dir="ltr">Brecht.</p></font></span><div><div>
<div class="gmail_quote">On May 10, 2014 8:57 PM, "Greg Zaal" <<a href="mailto:gregzzmail@gmail.com" target="_blank">gregzzmail@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">If I understand Thomas correctly, he's simply asking if we can have mesh lights contribute to the shadow pass, and perhaps environment lighting as well if possible.<div><br></div><div>Was it a design choice not to have mesh lights included in the shadow pass? If so, why? Just a performance issue, or is it somehow useful not to have them? I don't have much experience in compositing renders with GI, so forgive my ignorance if the answer is obvious.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Cheers,</div><div>Greg</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 10 May 2014 00:27, Brecht Van Lommel <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:brechtvanlommel@pandora.be" target="_blank">brechtvanlommel@pandora.be</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">In V-Ray or Mental Ray, is really all you use the shadow pass to get<br>
this working with IBL? Or do you also use "shadow catcher" or "shadow<br>
matte" materials? To me it seems what you are really asking for is the<br>
latter, but maybe I misunderstand how this works.<br>
<br>
You can emulate shadow catchers using render layers, but the render<br>
time is longer than it would be if it was done natively:<br>
<a href="http://www.pasteall.org/blend/29068" target="_blank">http://www.pasteall.org/blend/29068</a><br>
<br>
It's unlikely that I will work on a shadow catcher material in the<br>
next months, if someone wants to work on that I can help them, but I<br>
have other priorities at the moment.<br>
<br>
Brecht.<br>
<div><div><br>
On Fri, May 9, 2014 at 9:44 PM, Thomas Beck <<a href="mailto:software@plasmasolutions.de" target="_blank">software@plasmasolutions.de</a>> wrote:<br>
> Hi Brecht,<br>
><br>
> as we are creating a lot VFX for the advertising industry and we're<br>
> converting our projects slowly but steadily to Cycles we're now at a point<br>
> that bothers me and my colleagues a lot: A proper shadow pass that includes<br>
> HDR environment lights and mesh lights.<br>
><br>
> In our production work flow we're taking light probes on the set whenever we<br>
> need to create cg elements afterwards, this way we match the lighting<br>
> situation perfectly with the real world conditions.<br>
> When we compose those elements into the shot we're used to use the shadow (&<br>
> AO) pass (in vray / mental ray) and were a bit surprised as we saw that<br>
> we've got no possibility to mimic that behaviour with Cycles and our<br>
> lighting requirements as mesh and environment lights are not considered in<br>
> cycles shadow pass..<br>
><br>
> Today I asked DingTo on IRC and he told me that there is a way to take mesh<br>
> lights into account by deleting "ls.prim == PRIM_NONE && " in<br>
> kernel_emission.h<br>
> That is already a big leap forward but does not help us on our light probe<br>
> (IBL) work flow...so the question is: Do you know that this is not only a<br>
> small missing feature but is really crucial for VFX work? I talked with<br>
> Sebastian too and he's also missing it very much - without this, many<br>
> projects are very cumbersome to do atm.<br>
><br>
> I searched a bit and was led to the wiki page where you collect all todos<br>
> and especially this:<br>
><br>
> Option to include environment lighting in shadow pass.<br>
><br>
> <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:2.6/Source/Render/Cycles/ToDo" target="_blank">http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:2.6/Source/Render/Cycles/ToDo</a><br>
><br>
> I really don't want to bash here - just raise the awareness of this issue.<br>
> It's not only a missing feature, it's really a show stopper for us.<br>
><br>
> Is that feature hard to implement? Is there any chance you could tackle this<br>
> issue in a relatively short amount of time? Should I write Ton and beg for<br>
> dev time?<br>
><br>
> If you'd like to talk just drop me a message @plasmasolutions or g+ and I'll<br>
> be online in IRC...<br>
><br>
> Many greetings, Thomas<br>
><br>
> P.S: I'm happy that I'm not the only one with this request but I still<br>
> wonder why there are not many more? Is Blender rarely used in the VFX field?<br>
> <a href="https://developer.blender.org/T34272" target="_blank">https://developer.blender.org/T34272</a><br>
><br>
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><br>
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><br>
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