Multiple patterns/colors with the same shadows?

[Amoralie Triellis]

I'm making an object that I'd like to have in multiple different patters. But I'd like all of the shadowing to be the same, so when they're switched with an HUD only the color/pattern changes.

I know this is done a lot, but how? It seems impossible to me to paint shadowing in an outside photo client instead of within blender seeing the actual curves - but is that how it is normally done?

Any tips on how I can paint shadows on a separate layer either in photoshop or blender would be great!

[Michael Kyuzo]

Often, people will bake an ambient occlusion texture in blender, and use that as the starting point for a shadow layer in photoshop or the like. You'd want to set the layer to multiply, or possibly overlay, depending on the results you want. You can adjust the opacity to soften the effect. Another common technique would be to light your scene in blender and apply your shadowless textures and bake out the full lighting to a new set of textures. I hope this helps a little bit. Let me know if you have more questions, i might be able to help. I'm not all that advanced with blender, but may have some advice. Good luck.