Ignore Shadow Distance for single Objects

Unity Engine
1

Hey,

adjusting the shadow distance in the quality settings provides a way to disable shadows for distant objects and to save performance.
While the basic idea is fine, this method seems to have some limitations for practical use. For example, if there is a large scene with a huge distant shadow caster like a house or a boss monster, using a low shadow distance won’t work well because the shadow of this huge object suddenly disappears or pops up. Thus, while shadow distance might work well for all the other smaller objects and/or non-open-world scenes, in case of the big open-scene shadow casters, the shadows of such objects should be visible at any time, even from far distances. In such cases, it would be nice to have an option to ignore the shadow distance for those particular objects.

It seems that the projector effect may provide some kind of workaround, but anyway, I was wondering why shadow caster objects and/or lights do not have a flag like ignore shadow distance or something.
I guess this option would add some valuable flexibility.

2

This is just scratching the tip of the iceberg with Unity’s limited shadow system. For example: why isn’t there support for shadow maps that stick around? Why can’t we infrequently update some objects? why can’t we fade the shadows of some objects? ie culling group culled enemies suddenly pop in shadow wise because we can’t do this.

There’s a lot of limitations with the existing system. Meanwhile you could consider using something like blacksmith character shadows to split up quality as a workaround for now.

2 Likes
3

Thanks for the hint. I will have a look at the blacksmith shadow solution.