Possible for a shadow on a partially transparent object?

Hello,

So here is a picture of what I have

I would like to have a shadow being cast on side were light is not hitting the object. That earth at this point is a 2 mesh blueprint, makes it easier to accurately place them on the map space. The clouds is the partially transparent mesh that doesn’t want shadows. If I remove the cloud mesh from the blueprint, Earth will have the said shadowing. So, is this because I crafted a translucent object, and as such, no way for a shadow?
This is a screen of my blueprint

This is the Earth material

And the clouds material

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Slink

Hey Slink -

I would probably combine the two materials into one opaque material and us only the one sphere to render your Earth. You can use a Bump Offset node to offset the ground slightly and still keep the illusion of the clouds floating above the Earth.

Alternatively you can make your clouds material a Masked Blend Mode instead of Transparent and it will light exactly like an Opaque material. You may have to do some additional work with your alpha mask in Photoshop to successfully achieve something close to what you had in transparency.

Either option should allow you to get the lighting you are after -

Thank You

Eric Ketchum

Hey Eric,

Thanks for your advice, I’ll give these two different options a shot and see which one I prefer.

Thanks again,

Slink