Archvision RPC shadows

[cadmonkey33]

Hi,
I've just got some Archvision RPC content, and I can get shadows to appear, but they are offset from the base of the rpc by quite a distance.
playing with the shadow bias does move it about, but i cant get it in the right place. This happens with max standard lights and vray lights.

Does anyone have any general tips for using RPCs with vray? I dont mind comping if I have to, but i'd rather it just worked out of the box.

cheers,
Nat.

[Morne]

Its because its basically just billboards. Even though you can view them from any side, at render time, the appropriate billboard is rendered. If your RPC is not facing you with both feet parallel and in line at the bottom most part of your view, you WILL get a situation where the one foot's shadow is "almost" correct, while the other is heavily floating in the air. This can somewhat be overcome by slighly putting your rpc into the ground, I find -10mm or -20mm with their feet slihgly in the ground works wonders (only if their feet are parallel and they not standing too close to a wall)
Alternatively what works even better and is the preferres method if you're working on a still, is just to MATTE out your entire scene except the RPC, and basically render them out as a seperate PASS without shadows, then in photoChop just copy their layer and make shadows from that.

Unfortunately no out of the box real people solution exists for this and somehow I doubt that it ever will. Your best bet for out of the box is to get High Poly High detailed 3D people. Excellent for mid range to long range shot, and in some minor instances can be good for close-ups also.

OR, you can always green screen and cam match your own stuff and attemt to include the shadow. That's as close to "REAL" as you're gonna get.

[cadmonkey33]

thanks dvp3d,
dropping them 30mm or so into the ground seems to have mostly fixed it, although i cant have my sun too low, but thats good enough for me.
i'll be doing a seperate pass as well so i can color correct the people.

cheers,
nat.