How can we cast shadow of light with wireframe geometry ??

Julien Bayle's icon

Hi there, I'm sure that's not an obvious question.

I'd need to add a shadow/light stage in my system
I don't need a realistic rendering at all.

I'd need to cast ray of light / shadow into the void. like volumetric fx...
Some time ago I did that by using lines oriented from background to the camera moving, like ray of lights.. but not natural to do that.
Especially, the geomety would be wireframe so as far as I know, a line's width cannot cast any shadow

Any approaches, ideas or leads would be perfect for starting that.

Best,
Julien Bayle

michelez's icon

Hi Julien,
As far as casting a shadow, in your case I think you need to render the wireframe to a jit.gl.node @transform_reset 2 to make it flat, @capture 1 and use it as a texture for the plane you want to use for the shadows. I attached a patch that I did a while ago solving a similar but not identical issue.
I hope this helps!

Max Patch
Copy patch and select New From Clipboard in Max.