Drop shadow for a floating balloon, best approach?

[Freshman@56]

My balloon character has no legs or feet and I want it to have a drop shadow. Is a good approach for the drop shadow to label it a foot? Does it get an anchor?

Importantly, one feature would be the closer the balloon is to the ground the larger I'd like the shadow to be, and vice versa when it's further up and away from the floor.

Any wisdom on best practices for this would be appreciated. Thanks for your input. I'm building the puppet now.

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[Sjaani]

I would think the easiest way to do this would be to add the shadow in After Effects.

[Freshman@56]

Thank you Sjaani. I imagine that's true. And will work for my project.

I'm not sure what I'll do when/if i choose to use the puppet interactively, live. I feel like there's probably a property or combo of properties that would allow it to be in sync as part of the puppet.

Don't know. But am curious.

Now that you mention After Effects I wonder if most all drop shadows that need rigging are done in AE. Probably so.

Thanks again.

[alank99101739 · Accepted solution]

I was trying to think if there was any funky way to do the drop shadow.

Probably overkill, but you could use a Transform behavior on the balloon to adjust its height (Position Y), and a transform on the drop shadow (a transparent oval) to adjust its size (Scale X/Y). I was wondering if you could bind the same MIDI controller (if you had one with a slider) so the one slider could control both Position and Scale at the same time. (Each control in CH can specify a range of values, so you would be able to scale them differently).

Other than that, you would have to record the height and scale separately, which is not too bad.

I mean you could just have two puppets, but the above might make keeping their position in sync a little easier.

[Freshman@56]

Thank you alank99101739 for your suggestion of using transform behaviors. A good direction to focus on. I'm going to give that a go. I don't have a MIDI slider but I understand the point you make.

[Sjaani]

Agreed, and I think Alan might be onto a good combination. Depending on your time frame, it's definitely worth experimenting.

I think for simplicity I'd go with AE, but as you say if you want to use it live, you'll need it all activated within CH.