Maya 2011 Software Render: difficulty making shadow catcher

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# 1 16-01-2012 , 07:56 PM

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Join Date: Jan 2012

Posts: 2

Maya 2011 Software Render: difficulty making shadow catcher

It seems that I'm following the direction I've found after a lot of googling, but still I'm unable to make this work.

Using Maya 2011 on a Mac, software render engine.

Just a simple plane that I want to be invisible in a render, but to show shadows falling on it in that render. I created the plane, and assigned a usebackground shader, but in all the renders I've tried the plane just shows up in the render as black. I tried changing the shadow mask and matte opacity to various values, no effect. I still get a solid black plane showing up.

Is there some other setting I'm not getting?

Many thanks in advance!

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# 2 16-01-2012 , 08:51 PM

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Join Date: Jan 2012

Posts: 2

Okay, if I create a new scene with just a sphere and a plane to catch the shadow, it works. The problem seems to be something in the scene I got from my instructor, because I go through the same steps there and I get the black plane.

Weird.

Time to go ask him WTF.

Thanks anyway!

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