Render elements for white background shadows

[igendreau]

I have to render lots of chairs. I render, then I need to crop them and put them on a pure white background. Then I need to add some very minimal shadows back in, so it looks like the chair isn't floating in white space, but sitting in a perfect white room. Some chairs are 5-star based office chairs, and some are 4 legged chairs, so the shadows are all different, and I'd like to keep realistic shadows. Currently, I crop using the Material ID element, and then I reduce flow on my brush in Photoshop and paint back in some of the shadows. I've never used any of the Shadow render elements in V-Ray to try to shortcut this and was wondering if that is a possibility, and if so... how? I've attached a rendered chair in studio, as well as the type of "white background with minimal shadows" I have to produce. Thanks!

[iva_mancheva]

Hello igendreau,

A Wrapper material as a Shadow catcher on a plane under the chair would work perfectly for you.
Here is an example - I am using a Wrapper material for the plane under the chair, you need to set the Alpha Contribution to "Black Alpha (-1)" and enable Shadows. Here I am using a Dome light with a HDR with Studio environment, Dome light's "Invisible" option is enabled. You can also use the VFB Background layer for creating a white Background:


Let me know if this helps.

Kind regards,
Iva