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I have a fairly simple setup in Blender 2.81a.

enter image description here

A model, light source, camera, and a simple plane beneath it. I am attempting to render an image which renders the plane as a transparent background, but also has the shadow of the model cast onto it. In prior versions of blender this was do-able simply by allowing shadow casting onto the object and then making the object transparent, but this seems insufficient now that I have updated.

I have tried Eevee, and Cycles, but neither worked the way I'd like.

Currently I am messing around with a Mix shader comprised of a Transparent BSDF and a Diffuse, but while setting the Fac to 0.1 gets a "close" result, it still brightens the background slightly (since my diffuse color is white), which ruins the effect that I'm going for.

Any help would be appreciated. I am still very much a beginner with Blender.

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There is a "shadow catcher" option in the object visibility properties. It works only in cycles. Actually I don't know of a simple easy way to do it in Eevee.

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ I will try this as soon as I get home, thank you! Is there any changes I should make to my material? Will this work with a pure transparent plane? $\endgroup$
    – Onyz
    Jan 22, 2020 at 13:38
  • $\begingroup$ As a matter of fact I think you should not use a transparent shader for this. In my picture the plane uses the default material so I guess a simple diffuse shader would work $\endgroup$
    – Gorgious
    Jan 22, 2020 at 13:43
  • $\begingroup$ The plane will render as a transparent background even without a transparent shader? Interesting... OK, very eager to try this. $\endgroup$
    – Onyz
    Jan 22, 2020 at 13:44
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    $\begingroup$ Worked beautifully! Thank you sir! $\endgroup$
    – Onyz
    Jan 22, 2020 at 20:15

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