Query - Disabling the automatic shadows for 3D models

[Acreatorian]

Hello! This is my first post in these forms; I've been playing around with the studio version of Magic a little over a month now. I'll probably be posting in here a lot, I have many project ideas that may require niche solutions.

I just have one question right now though: Magic seems to generate shadows whenever you import a 3D object. The automatic shadows can cause flickering problems with filters, and can muddy the colors of the model, so it would be more useful to me if the 3D objects weren't shaded in any way, and maintained their flat colors. Is there a way to disable these shadows, or change the shadow settings? Perhaps a 3D model file format that doesn't get shadows when imported into magic? I haven't been able to find any information about this in the User Guide or example projects.

I'm currently using the studio version of Magic, but I've been planning on upgrading to Performer, so if this is a feature in performer that works too.

I appreciate any info! Excited to be here, looking forward to working more with this awesome program :)

[Sadler]

I don't think you mean shadows. Magic will shade 3D objects using a fixed front light position so non-incident faces are darker, but objects will never interact light-wise (i.e. cast shadows on each other). Perhaps you mean something else? Object materials and the Colorize option can brighten things to some degree. A screenshot of your issue would help.

[Acreatorian]

Ah yes, I do mean the fixed shading on the objects, sorry I wasn't super clear!

Attached are some screenshots of objects with the shadows. Hopefully that helps.

sphere_shaded.png (108.61 KiB) Viewed 13211 times

cube_shaded.png (83.34 KiB) Viewed 13211 times

Colorize works somewhat to change the colors, but the shadows still stay a varied-opacity black. The shadows on the cube change depending on the rotation of the object faces. The more complicated filters I've tried that could potentially change the shadow colors seem unable to apply to 3D objects without losing their 3D shape and alpha transparency.

I'm interested in what you mean by materials! Is that a module setting or effect module that supports 3D shapes? That may be useful for what I'm trying to do :). Thanks so much for the help!

[Sadler]

Here's a cube with materials compared to a cube without. Materials are applied in your 3D software, not Magic. Search on the forum for the best 3d format.

Textured, Textured+Colorize, No texture

Screenshot 2025-09-28 223342.png (87.6 KiB) Viewed 13206 times

If you had no shading on the cube, this is what it'd look like.

Screenshot 2025-09-28 223826.png (4.63 KiB) Viewed 13206 times

[Acreatorian]

Thanks, this is super helpful! I'm no 3D expert, but hopefully I'll be able to figure it out now. I appreciate the help! :D

[Valis]

That's just Phong/Blinn shading. What you want is a constant shader, that should be easily modified in any 3D app, and shouldn't take long to learn.