Large Scene

Unity Engine
1

Hi

I have a large scene with one directional light.

I want to make a set of large mesh mountains a distant background but not contribute to the DL shadow map - as when they are enabled they make the shadows on my main character at the centre unstable.

How can I have them present but not affected by the DL? I have tried Unlit/Color but this has now effect.

Thanks

2

Any ideas?

Help would be very appreciated.

This from the manual:

“The shadow map from a light needs to cover only the part of the scene visible to the camera, which is defined by the camera’s view frustum”

Does this mean that regardless of whether an object does not receives and cast shadows or is using an Unlit shader or on a layer unaffected by the light it still contributes to the directional shadow map and therefore shadow quality?

3

On the renderer component of the mountains, you can change the “Shadow Mode” (or “Shadow Caster Mode”, I forget) to “No Shadows”. Regardless, I don’t think they should negatively impact your main shadowmap, which IIRC is only affected by global quality settings, and is essentially a screen-space effect otherwise?

4

Thanks GoGoGadget

That is what I thought too - but if I turn shadows off the shadow map quality is still poor. If I disable the mountain meshes so they are not in the scene then the quality returns.

I just thought that there was I way to see distant objects - have them in no way be a part of the directional light’s shadow map and therefore not affect it’s quality. But it seems that if you can see them then the get computed into the shadow map.

5

Ahhh you’re talking about baked lighting? Uncheck “lightmap static” on the Gameobjects’ properties up the top right, and it shouldn’t get added to the lightmap.