I can't work out how this is done and it's driving me crazy!!!

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Level 1

4 points

I can't work out how this is done and it's driving me crazy!!!

Hi Everyone...I want to replicate the shadow effect in this video but for the life of me can't work it out. It looks like the shadow produced by a light directly over the text but I cant work out how to do that and evenly light the rest of the set, if that's in fact what's been done. There is definitely a floor in the set but everytime I try to cast a shadow onto the floor I end up lighting the whole floor and revealing the edge. I thought it may also have been done with a drop shadow but how do you influence the drop shadow to sit flat as if it's sitting on the floor of a 3d set.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Yh26caVDcs

Motion 5.0.6

Posted on Apr 12, 2014 3:18 PM

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Answer 1

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fox_m

Level 6

12,238 points

Apr 12, 2014 6:02 PM in response to dpcam1

Turn your foreground items that do not need to react to the light to 2D (from the Group level.) 3D objects will use lighting, 2D will ignore lighting.

If you ask me - those shadows are faked.

One of the best ways to fake that kind of shadowing is to group all the items casting the shadows into a group. In Motion, Clone the group (type 'k') and add Color Correction > Hue/Saturation filter (set saturation to 0 and dial down the value to darken the greys) and add a Gaussian blur and crank up the amount. Then, Scale Y down to about 30%.

Move the clone down in space to be the cast shadows.

The clone retains all the animations of all objects within the grouping and the parallax of moving it downward in space gives the sense of casting shadows on a "floor".

For the above, I have 3 green rectangles, all the same size. The one on the left has a Spin behavior on the Y axis. The group of rectangles was clones, Hue/Saturation (0 Saturation, reduced Value); Gaussian blur 140 and Y Scale 31% (Opacity reduced to 60%.) Background is a Gradient Generator. Background is 2D. Rectangle group 3D. No light or camera was used.

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