I am trying to create a shadow for soft surfaces

thenameisjoee

Hi all, 

I am struggling a bit atm. I recently got the Iray HDRI Toolkit, and I love the aspect of being able to create shadows with objects that aren't visible when I render. 

I render out PNG's of models for montage work. So I take a source image myself with original photography, create a person in DAZ, and insert them into the picture that I took. 

What the Toolkit is great for is hard and solid objects, whether that be a plank, platform, ball, curved surface, etc. 

What I am looking for right now is the same type of Iray HDRI shadow work, but for soft surfaces. I'd like to be able to replicate the shadow work for a foot "sinking" into the ground, such as on a mattress, but I don't want an object, such as a mattress, to show up in the render. Is there a way to accomplish this with the Iray HDRI Toolkit or something similar? 

Elliandra

Morning!
Not sure if this is what you are looking for but Studio has a built in layering canvas system for partial rendering options!
Check out the Canvases video tutorial from ARTCollaborations on YouTube, it's a two part series.
Elli