How to isolate shadows and reflections

[it_refplus]

Can someone tell me how to isolate shadows and reflections? Compositing tag? Looking for some kind of tutorial. Thanks.

[YunalZobu]

Do you mean having a matte surface/shadow catcher, perhaps you could share an example of what you are after?

[it_refplus]

Yes, exactly. I haven't done this since I've acquired Vray. I used to do it with C4D's native tools but it wasn't very user-friendly, to tell the truth. Here's a quick draft of what I'm trying to achieve. The machine is 3D but the background and floor is a photo. I did the floor reflection and shadow with Photoshop, just to show what the final image will look like. Thanks.

[marko_kezele]

For floor reflections you can try something like this: first create floor plane with reflective material and then to isolate floor reflections you can use Extra Tex Render Element with VRayDirt material as a texture. In VRayDirt material, under Parameters, set Occlusion Mode to any of the Reflection Occlusion modes, such as Phong Reflection Occlusion. Set Radius to some large value (3000 cm worked for me last time). You can control the Glossiness of the reflection under the same tab. Then under the Affected By tab set Mode to Include and drag in the object you want to catch the reflection of in the Objects field. Include/Exclude tab can be used to further refine the mask.
You can isolate the main object separately using Multi Matte Render Element, or some other Matte Render Element.
Hope this helps.

[it_refplus]

Thanks Marko, I will try this out. So, if I understand correctly, this is all done in Render Elements, which I imagine I should learn more about. I will try to find related tutorials, which are rare to come by. Thanks again.