Graphics

Am I missing a simple step that can make a 3d object cast a shadow on another object? I'm working on Designer on Parallels on a Mac. I will double check when I get to the main machine.

No, you're not missing anything - there are no built in shadows in Xpression. That, and reflections, can be problematic for AR. I have not discovered any work-arounds that don't have problems. A simple shadow and reflection shader would do the trick, but it's just not there.
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You could always try creating scenes outside of XPression with shadows, but that would obviously make it less dynamic
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When we were first trained they told us to stay away from the drop shadow effect for memory purposes. I can see now that a shadow based on a global light for every object in the scene, rendered in real time, with live updates of stats might be just a little too much to ask.
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I'm guessing you are working with 3D numbers then? If numbers were to be 2D then you could certainly build this in another program and then keyframe your stats to where they need to be in the scene.
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Drew, we are trying to build 3d stages for sponsorship logos during time outs. We can probably change materials out for the various logos and their corresponding shadows, but the shadow would not be a true 3d shadow against the back wall and perhaps the floor.
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Yeah, so it would probably be best to create these elsewhere, say After Effects, and link their file paths to Excel. You could then use a widget and scripting to cycle through each sponsor if you were wanting to have a different one for every replay or if you just wanted to run them continuously. We do this at Clemson for all of our video board shows by having a custom control for Replay In/Out and scripting that runs on the animations that causes it to change the sponsorship material each time the replay is took online. It basically just follows down a numbered column in Excel with the file paths of all of our sponsor logos. I can send you the scripting if you want to try it out.
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Drew, I would appreciate that. Ours is slightly different. The boss wants us to go into a 3d stage with back walls, and a floor with a 3d sponsor logo floating in the center. Imagine a turntable as the floor, and two flattened cubes that form an x dividing the floor into 4 rooms. Our operator has to be able to drag the correct scenes that will seamlessly transition to each other by way of rotating the turntable 90 degrees. However these scenes need to be easily located, and simply dragged over to the Sequencer because things change quickly. Our game rundowns are pretty fluid. I have gotten past the scene to scene trigger thanks to Garner at Ross. We just want to dress up the scene a bit with cool shadows. But I do like the idea of using Xpression as a playback engine for the 3d scenes.
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I'll shoot you an email with the scripting.
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