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title: "How to Turn an Object Into a Shadow Catcher"
canonical: "https://documentation.chaos.com/space/VBLD/117638127/How%20to%20Turn%20an%20Object%20Into%20a%20Shadow%20Catcher"
format: markdown
---
This page guides you through the steps of making a Shadow Catcher object with V-Ray for Blender. Overview The V-Ray shadow catcher is a Matte object that is not directly visible in the scene but receives shadows. This approach is ideal for achieving a photorealistic render, compositing a 3D object with a shadow on top of the environment map, or just a backdrop.  The scene here is set up using a Finite  Dome Light  with an attached HDRI map from the  Chaos Cosmos Browser . The car geometry is also imported from Cosmos. The Camera has the  V-Ray Physical Camera Attributes  enabled. This workflow follows the manual steps for converting an object into a shadow catcher.  For a quicker workflow with a single button, see the  Make Shadow Catcher  Tool page. Click on the button to download the scene and follow along with the steps: Without  Shadow Catcher With  Shadow Catcher Create the Shadow Catcher Object Add a Plane geometry under the object that is casting the shadow. At the end of this tutorial, the geometry will be invisible and will only receive shadows. You can see that now the object is casting a shadow, but the plane is visible, so it does not look like the car is on the street.  See how to create a shadow catcher using Matte properties. Steps 1 Select the plane. Go to the  V-Ray Node Editor  and open the Object Node Tree. Click on  Use V-Ray Object Nodes.  You will see the  V-Ray Object Output  node appear in the Node Editor.  The V-Ray Node Editor is available only when the render engine is set to V-Ray. For more information, s ee  Activate your Product . 2 Create a V-Ray Matte Properties node. It is located under the  Add  menu >  Object Properties . Connect the node to the Matte input socket of the V-Ray Object Output. This way, the Matte properties will be applied to the plane. 3 Go to the Matte Properties' parameters. They are in the  Node  side panel of the V-Ray Node Editor. Set the  Alpha Contribution  to -1 Enable the  Shadows  and  Affect Alpha  parameters Set the  Matte for Secondary Rays  parameter to  With Projection Mapping Alternatively, you can access the  Object Properties  from the  Object  tab >  V-Ray Object Properties .  Here are the same properties in the Object tab, where you also need to enable  Matte Surface , to be able to access these settings. This is how the render looks in the end. You can see the car geometry is now casting a shadow in the scene; the plane under it is not visible, but only receives shadows. Thanks to the  Matte for Secondary Rays , the plane is also not visible in any secondary reflections on the car.