I wonder how possible it could be to effectively create a Blueprints component that abuses the render target system (With depth buffers) to essentially create a new shadow mapping system, which could then be used inside of unlit materials to have shadows cast onto them. Granted, that won’t take advantage of raytracing or Unreal’s new shadow system, but at least the way that I see it, it would be a good compromise for the time being until there’s massive overhauls to Unreal Engine’s strata system. If you think about it, directional lights are essentially cameras that use depth buffer information to effectively fake a light being there.
It looks like it’s been achieved before, but you kind of have to piece together how things were done:
How to blur a custom shadow map?
Forward rendering specific materials could be an option (Apparently that is a feature that strata can do), but you can’t access any sort of lighting information via that. Couldn’t one essentially do a deferred shading pass first, somehow save the lighting information, and then use parts of the lighting information in a forward shaded context?
Just trying to brainstorm ways on how we can figure out the problem of no shadow mapping under the current engine limitations.