Is there a way to Render the Set and the Characters Separately?

will2power

I hope I can explain this properly.

I have a scene that is indoors. There are distant lights outside and the skydome as well as other buildings that cast shadows the way that I want them. I have posed the characters and gotten everything to look the way that I think it should.

What I would like to do is render the characters by themselves as though they were in the room without rendering the room and furniture and other props. Then I would like to render the room and props by themselves as though the characters were still in them. I basically want to be able to take the two renders into photoshop and add some effects on layers in between them.

I've tried clicking off the the visible in render, but when I do that for the room, the light casts on the figures as though they were outside. Is there something I'm missing? I thought that there was a way to do that, but I'm drawing a blank.

frank0314

Save your scene as a duf and then save your pose on the character. Then you can render the environment and character separately just render the character in a new scene and save it as a png and then you can merge the two in Photoshop or Gimp

Richard Haseltine

That won't help with the shadows. You could use pwCatch, or Shader Mixer with a Ray Test brick, to make the props opaque to shadows but transparent to cameras so that they cast shadows on the figures but were otherwise invisible. You'd also want a shadows catcher property for those surfaces that the figures were casting shadows onto.

frank0314

Oops. Wasn't thinking about the shadows

Totte

will2power said:

I hope I can explain this properly.

I have a scene that is indoors. There are distant lights outside and the skydome as well as other buildings that cast shadows the way that I want them. I have posed the characters and gotten everything to look the way that I think it should.

What I would like to do is render the characters by themselves as though they were in the room without rendering the room and furniture and other props. Then I would like to render the room and props by themselves as though the characters were still in them. I basically want to be able to take the two renders into photoshop and add some effects on layers in between them.

I've tried clicking off the the visible in render, but when I do that for the room, the light casts on the figures as though they were outside. Is there something I'm missing? I thought that there was a way to do that, but I'm drawing a blank.

Hi,

make a copy of your scene (for safety reasons), open it use the UberShader on all figures and set them to fantom (will render the figures invisible but leave the shadows, then render once more with all figures hidden. You can put them all in a group, and hide the group.

will2power

Thanks a lot, guys. Those were some good suggestions. I'll give them a try and see how it turns out. Hopefully it will mean an end to this particular frustration.

Jaderail

This is a Multi step process, But very do able as long as you have your Scene saved so it can be reloaded if needed.

Step one Figures only no Shadows. Turn off in the Scene tab with the EYE (expand all items and use the BASE eye for each thing) everything except your Figures and the Indoor lighting, Yes turning off the Base lights will turn off a light. Now render this File. And save as a PNG or TIFF so the Background layer is a Alpha layer.

Step two the Room with shadows. Apply the UBER Surfaceshader with the option Ignore Textures to ALL Figures, and Items on the Figures, Hair, clothing, every item on the figure. Open each Figure in Surfaces and Set Fantom to ON. Turn Fantom ON for all items that need to disappear. Turn off with the EYE in the Scene Tab Only for the items that Will not be included in this Layer, your Figures and their items will disappear at render time so only turn off Out door lighting and scene items like the trees and such. Now Render this Layer. Save as PNG ect..

Final Step: Turn off all but the LAST items outdoor Background and Items. Render this layer. You should now have Three layers to Blend and edit as you like. The Uber SS Fantom tip is also useful for Items that need shadows but will not be SEEN in the final render.