Catching Shadows : Using the Matte Function in Iray

kwannie

I have been trying to find ways to export my animations to other platforms from DAZ in layers. I found that the Blender 2.92 Video Sequence Editor works amazing for that purpose. The problem now is finding a way to catch shadows in Iray. I  realize that this is what the Matte function is intended to do, but for now I have only gotten it to work using a distant light or the dome. I get no shadows  when trying it with a spot light. I have seen many tutorials on catching shadows in 3Delight, but can't find much for Iray. Any assistance would be appreciated

Sevrin

There are two more parts after this

kwannie

Sevrin I did see those tutorials, and I can get the Matte function to work fine with a distant light, but I want to use a spot light on the character so that the lighting is the same on the character as it is on the background. If I try to use distant lights on the background I can't adjust a spread angle to make it look the same as a spotlight. Distant lights are primarily for flat lighting to illuminate the entire scene evenly. I guess I could just try to adjust the intensity. By the way is there a way to just capture reflections using the Matte function? Is there a way tto seperate the shadow and the charater using Canvas? Thanks for the input.