Hello,
I’m making a 3D platformer, and it’s heavily stylized so I don’t need realistic shadowing on the character. I really need a simple blob shadow; a circle that is projected from the player’s feet downwards.
A few things i’ve already tried, and decided won’t work well enough:
- decals. the shadow needs to reach far beneath the player’s feet when in the air, and decals fade out near the edge of their extents. Because of the fading, if you use a long decal at your player’s feet to overlap the ground while far away from it, your shadow will fade out completely the closer to the ground you get (since decals project the strongest at their exact middle), which is the opposite of what should happen. There is also an issue where even if I went with a large dimension decal, it will go through the ground completely (standing on a platform, the circle will cast on the ground below it, too; even when completely occluded).
- line trace and plane. the shadow will hover in the air when you’re next to a ledge, which looks really awful.
I’d like the smooth overlap of decals, without the issues. If this is possible with some sort of material/shader trickery, please let me know. I figured something seemingly so simple would be in high demand, seeing as how it’s a concept used in so many games!