ImagePlane3D casting the plane shadow instead of the .PNG

Hi! I'm pretty new here and pretty much still learning DaVinci Resolve and Fusion after years of using another program that I do not wish to associate with anymore.

I have a scene with 2 .PNG images that each have their own ImagePlane3D nodes (Background PNG and People PNG) that have a Camera and SpotLight and my goal is to have the People PNG to cast shadow behind the Background PNG while having a depth of field going on.

My problem is that:

- When using Software Renderer in the Renderer3D node, it does cast the People PNG shadow as expected, but there's no depth of field

- When using Hardware Renderer in the Renderer3D node, it has the depth of field that I want, but the People PNG's ImagePlane3D node casts the flat plane itself.

I'm wondering if there's a workaround to this? I've searched on Reddit, YouTube, and even saw a similar post here (sadly I'm not allowed to post URLs), which I think hasn't been resolved. I'm pretty lost so any help is appreciated, and thank you in advance!

Yes, unfortunately, and I hope Blackmagic one day changes this, the software renderer (CPU) is the only option that supports casting shadows for textures with transparency. To cast shadows, you can use the software renderer mode in Render3D.

Alternatively, you can use a 3D object. If you have SVGs, you can convert them to the Shape system and use Extrude3D to create a 3D shape. This will allow shadow casting with the hardware renderer (GPU).

The hardware renderer supports depth of field and renders much faster, but the software renderer supports shadows.

If you need both features, or if you want to divide the rendering process, you can create a shadow pass. Use the software renderer only for shadows and the hardware renderer for everything else. Then, combine them afterward using a blending mode like multiply.

Someone asked this same question a few threads ago, and I explained how to do it and shared a composition. Here is the link:

ImagePlain3D to cast shadow of a PNG+Alpha

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=219770

Although in your case, you might want to simplify it further. You can create depth of field fast by diving the comp into two passe and therefore layers. So you have your foreground and background. After that it is easy to blur one or the other. or if you want to make it even easier, if you keep the background always blur you can blur the 2D text before you put it on image plane.

I would suggest you look for FilmBlur macro on reactor.


FilmicBlur for Blackmagic Fusion

You can animate it to pull focus between differnt layers as well.

For example....

butler in focus.avi_snapshot_00.00_[2025-05-07_15.18.33].jpg (128.85 KiB) Viewed 666 times

butler in focus.avi_snapshot_00.04_[2025-05-07_15.18.46].jpg (130.85 KiB) Viewed 666 times

P.S.

Bonus tip. If you want to speed up rendering. Every time you load at static images that are not animated themselves and nothing depends on them, Just textures or something like that. Turn off update for the noes. CTRL + U, or right click on node, mode, turn off "updates" Its like freeze frame visually, but it doesn't requires as much processing. It can dramatically speed up rendering times, even with very large images. I use it all the time.

I followed what you suggested by simplifying everything. Additionally, your other suggestions for the workaround do work and something I'll be looking more into for my other projects! I'll also be checking out Reactor while I'm at it. Thank you again for the help and the additional tips!

I really do hope that Blackmagic gives us an update that would solve this issue, but for now, we do what we can with what we currently have.