Comments on: mip_matteshadow and how I have used it

By: david

david — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 03:59:18 +0000

I'm glad to hear you got it figured out, and thanks for posting your solution. I don't use mentalray very often these days, so I do tend forget some of the details.

By: thebeals

thebeals — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:32:07 +0000

Oh sorry for wasting your time, I figured it out. I didn't have the matteshadow applied to the shadow shader in the sg slot. It works like a charm now! Again, amazing blog and amazing work!

By: thebeals

thebeals — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:14:55 +0000

Hello David, I've trying to use the mip_matteshadow in Maya 2011 and I cannot keep it from self shadowing so I remembered your post here about it and so I downloaded your scene to see what I could possibly be doing wrong and when I rotated your light so it's coming in from behind your stairs, I noticed that your stairs shadowed themselves as well. Is it possible to keep the matteshadow from self shadowing? I thought that's what the "no self shadow" parameter was about? Am I missing something or is there a bug? Thank you for such a helpful blog, it has saved my skin many many times! I really appreciate all the help!

By: _murphy_

_murphy_ — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 12:48:30 +0000

has anyone tried to use mip_matteshadow with contribution maps?

it just does not work, or am I missing something?

By: david

david — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:57:59 +0000

smokedogg: I hope it is working out for you. If not send me a scene and I'll take a look. I emailed you, so you have my address. Thanks for you kind words too!

By: smokedogg

smokedogg — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 22:25:03 +0000

Hello David, well after my last post I did some more researching on hdr labs and re-read the sIBL GUI manual i believe after the creation and import/export, supposedly a mip_matteshadow should be connected to where ever and however the script loads. Im not sure cause im at work now and wont be able to give it a try for about another 9 hours. So hopefully now everything will just ok. Thanks for your time as your probably sick of hearing from me. Although you have become a saint to me for all the help you have brought to me thus far since I found your A+ blog!

By: smokedogg

smokedogg — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:53:41 +0000

OK, I am understanding what you are saying but the 1 thing that is puzzling me is that when I go to connect anything from or to the matteshadow, I keep getting the connection editor and am not sure what attr. to connect to where. e.g.- I have my sIBL all setup, my building, and my ground plane. Now when I render I get no shadows. Thats where the mattashadow comes into play and now where I get lost. From here, I am not sure where and what goes what. I have downloaded your example scene and tried following what you have on your setup but no resulting shadows. I feel like a newbie again. Sorry. Maybe if I could somehow email or post my test scene and you could take a look at for me to see what I am doing wrong would be greatly honored. Thank you.

By: david

david — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:19:55 +0000

smokedogg: This post kind of assumes you already know how mip_matteshadow works. If not then have a look at the link to zap's blog (in the first paragraph). There you will find some set up hints and example scenes too.

I'm guessing (from your other comments) that you are going to be using mip_matteshadow with your sIBL setups. If that is the rayswitch that you are asking about, then probably the answer is no. You dont connect mip_matteshadow to that rayswitch. You were right in the last question - mip_matteshadow would be assigned to your floor geometry.

As I have shown in my examples in this post, I often do use rayswitch nodes with mip_matteshadow, but not the one created with the sIBL loader.

By: smokedogg

smokedogg — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 04:23:49 +0000

Hey Dave, its me again onto this topic now. As you know, I was just asking you about the HDR and IBL stuff earlier on. And now I have came to this point with the shadows not showing up in my scene and have researched a bit into the mip_MatteShadow. Sounds and looks kind of confusing, probably cause its new me. But anyway, I have my scene setup with the rayswitch, and now what? Do I just connect the MatteShadow into the shadow slot on the rayswitch? Or is there more to that? Or is it suppose to go into say on my grounds SG node? Thank you.

By: david

david — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:22:47 +0000

agenesis: I'm glad you found my blog useful. I appreciate the comment.

Unfortunately I have no experience with render passes. Using render layers, like in this post, are how I still do it. Even then refraction is tricky when it comes to alpha channels. I think I would probably try to set up a render layer with white objects casting shadows, but it would not be accurate like a true shadow pass.

Hopefully someone else can help you with this. Good luck.