Shadows not working in Orthographic

Makotech222 · February 24, 2015, 1:13am

This is a continuation of the forum post i wrote for Tim Hobson:

Relevant info:

My game is simply barebones at the moment, no complex logic with regard to rendering.
My Directional light source is set to Moveable. Tried Static and Stationary as well.
Tried turning on and off many settings in the light source
My camera is connected by a spring arm to a movable sphere, hooked up to wsad (It’s an RTS game).
I’m on SM5.0
Shadows work perfect in perspective mode.
Engine scalability set to Epic (I’m on a gtx 980).

-A point light works perfect. So does spot light

Thats about all the information i can think of. Let me know if you find anything Tim Hobson. Thanks

Tim_Hobson · February 24, 2015, 2:44am

Hey Makotech222,

I’ve gone ahead and assigned myself and moved this over to Bug Reports to see if we can try and track down what’s going on. I’ll take a look at this as soon as I can.

Tim_Hobson · February 24, 2015, 7:59pm

Hey Makotech222,

I’m still looking into this one for you, but could you update to the final release of 4.7 that came out today and let me know?

Thanks!

Makotech222 · February 25, 2015, 12:42am

Just updated the engine and tried it out. Still have the same issue. Tried lighting quality on High instead of preview and that didn’t help either. Are you seeing the same issue as I am?

Tim_Hobson · February 26, 2015, 10:25pm

Hi Makotech222,

I’ve reported this issue with UE-11026. When I tested this I tested with 4.6, 4.7, and our internal build of what will become 4.8. This was happening in all three and is not isolated to being an issue directly related to 4.7. I was able to see that using stationary lights cause clipping artifacts. If the directional was made to be movable from stationary it would lose all shadows. When going back to stationary these shadows would remain removed until lighting was rebuilt.

Here is the video of my results with testing in 4.6: Dropbox - Error

Thanks again for reporting and I will update once the ticket has been resolved, however there is no ETA for when this will be assessed by an engineer.

Tim

Makotech222 · February 26, 2015, 11:24pm

Very interesting results. Thanks for following up. I don’t mind waiting for a fix, as long as it’s in the queue I’ll be happy.

Reality-X · December 2, 2015, 3:18pm

has there been any progress on this, because i think we are seeing the same behavior in our game on 4.9.2

Tim_Hobson · December 2, 2015, 6:21pm

This ticket is currently backlogged at the moment. I know it gets old hearing, but once a fix has been submitted I will be able to post back here with more details and a release of the engine that this will be included in. Unfortunately there are only a limited number of developers vs the bugs that have to be prioritized.

I did just try this in our what will be our 4.11 build and I’m not seeing an issue like before though. While that doesn’t mean it is fixed, maybe it’s improved there.

fanzypantz · February 7, 2016, 10:50pm

Im on the 4.11 preview and this is my downwards facing camera in orthographic view. As you can see there are only shadows on one part of the screen, any tips on why?

http://puu.sh/mZFpw/bde868c77b.jpg

Tim_Hobson · February 8, 2016, 10:01pm

It’s still part of the same issue. It’s dependent on the view angle. For instance, using the Third Person template the shadow doesn’t work at regular view angles for third person, but adjusting the camera to be overhead will allow the shadow to be visible.

This is ticket is still backlogged at the moment though.

anonymous_user_a658f9d9 · April 10, 2016, 7:43pm

Its 4.11.1, still this problem exist. If this problem persists after next patch/update, i am switching to Unity. Frustrated by the orthographic camera.

anonymous_user_a658f9d9 · April 19, 2016, 3:47pm

Here is comparison of unity’s orthographic camera + directional light vs UE4 (4.11.1). Epic is just a pathetic company, half engine, full frustration over lighting and shadow.

desert_racer · July 14, 2016, 10:56am

Are there any updates on this?

Tim_Hobson · July 14, 2016, 11:37am

@desert_racer

It’s still marked as backlogged, so no update at this time really.

RVillani · July 27, 2016, 3:11am

Unreal Issue Tracker

Please, go there and vote, so Epic can know how important this is for us.

anonymous_user_e2d831d6 · October 8, 2016, 3:05pm

Also have this bug. This is extremely important for my project!

vle07 · October 14, 2016, 3:39am

Using 4.13.1 and shadows are still not visible through orthographic cameras. You can almost get around this issue by using a perspective camera with a very small FOV and then moving the camera very far away to see enough of your scene. Are there any better workarounds?

LordDMasters · October 24, 2016, 4:28pm

HI there, Im in the same situation, I tried the same solution than vle07 but its not what i want, I hope in 4.14 they fix that

Tim_Hobson · October 24, 2016, 6:10pm

@LordDMasters

Currently not planned to be added to 4.14. It’s backlogged at the moment and I’m not aware of any significant work planned for the Orthographic view it may be a while yet before this is fixed. With full source availability, you do have the option to implement the fixes yourself as well.

Endru6 · November 22, 2016, 7:55pm

Why all the 52 votes that issue had has been reset?