Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I need to ask if a Render Layer is capable of saving a population+cast shadows to a layer.
I've ran several tries but was able only to render the population and the alpha, but no shadows from it.
Thanks
I know I promised to help you, but I can't on this. Never touched render layers yet. But someone will pass along...
Currently there is no shadow render element.
Depending on your needs it might be possible to figure out a workaround,though.
My need would be to be able to render a tree population and the shadows casted on the terrain only. So that at the end I have a rgb+alpha file containing such trees+shadows.
I'm not sure if this could be doable with some tricks: for example having terrain mat set to white with ambient to 100% and no diffuse (?) so that it acts as a shadows catcher, and trees to full black and render without atmosphere. So that I'd basically get a black and white trees+shadows mask of some sort.
But I hoped the render layers were able to handle that...
The trees are no problem.You can do that easily,with alpha and as hold out and so on.
What you suggest (terrain mat to white etc) would be a good starting point and
should work,if it fits your purposes.