Ok! Another Tut for exploring the RenderMan capabilities via MtoR. This time we're going to work with shadow passes for compositing purpose

 There are several ways to output a Shadow only pass but i will show you two wich are not covered by the documentation (or maybe I'm blind)

1 - First we setup a simple scene. A plane and a sphere a few cubes and one light. For this exemple I choose a Directional Light but the same thing is possible with SpotLight or PointLight.



2 - Let see what we got If you have it in your shelf, Hit the RenderMan Render button

Above you see what I get with my setting.




3 - We create now, a new SLIM palette.

Render > RenderMan > Slim > NewPalette.

4 - In the new Slim Palette create some new Appearances.
One Ensemble (Ctrl+e or File>Create Appearance>Ensemble.)
One RatCollector (File>Import Appearance>Goto Rat Shaders and select RatCollector.)
One Light Appearance with shadowMap connection (Similar to the light type you shoose earlier in Maya.)




5 - The RatCollector Appearance .
set the shadow color and opacity to white.
Make sure the collect Shadows attribute is checked on.