skeletal mesh/animation casts no shadow/ao in render but is there in viewport [movable -RTX project]

Development Character & Animation
1

Hi,

I’m trying to render out an animation via movie render queue [which is DXGI crashing the party] from the sequencer un imported skeletal mesh/anim however even though the car casts a shadow on the landscape just fine in view port there is nothing accept the shadow of the ue mannequin inside it that i attached to the car. Im new to using SM so am at a loss as to why this is happening…

my skeletal mesh actor is in the sequencer timeline where i added some time dilation at points along the animation and some transforms to the vehicle at other points.
my skeletal mesh has a physics asset that I’ve tried deleting and regenerating to see if there was issue there. My materials used by the SM are two sided…

any ideas anyone?

don’t know if relevant or just a bug but Within the skeletal mesh editor [mesh section] selecting ‘isolate’ does not isolate the selected geometry…

thanks in advance.

4.25.3

2

mmmm…nobody?:wink: only added the extra mmm as the forum needs at least 10 characters for a post submission;/

3

Could be because the delorien look alike is traveling fourthdimentionally :stuck_out_tongue:

Check the light settings on your light.
check the render settings on your mesh.
Check the capture settings in sequencer - it should by default use cinematic scalability.

lots of flags can potentially disable shadow from cinematics

4

ha !

Lights cast shadows What render setting on the skeletal mesh are we referring to and is this under the meshes details panel?
Cinematic scaling is active.

Thanks

5

Generally speaking, all settings are overridden by the editor, so click on the mesh in the editor and look into the details panel.

if you added it in via sequencer, then the same place you select the mesh in sequencer would probably give you some options.
Select skeletal mesh component, see if anything shows up from that.

Skeletal meshes often need specific light settings to cast shadows correctly - and scalability changes what is casting too.

Also, PHAT which you deleted could be used to cast shadows - depending on settings (capsule shadows, so not ray traced accurate ones) - if you deleted it, but the setting to cast the capsule shadow is on, that would explain why no shadow is cast…

6

thanks…

issue was there before i deleted and then recreated the physics asset.
Im new to SMs but my mesh is set to cast shadows in a rtx project.

not sure i get this comment though…
“depending on settings (capsule shadows, so not ray traced accurate ones) - if you deleted it, but the setting to cast the capsule shadow is on, that would explain why no shadow is cast…”

sorry…could you elucidate ?

7

Skeletal meshes have an option that allows them to cast shadows from the capsule components in the PHAT for performance issues.

8

Hi and thanks…if PHAT is the Physical Asset created alongside my Skeletal Mesh on import then I believe the shadows cast from Capsules is on…
Cant currently open any rtx ue4 projects at present due to a d3drhi assertion/crash on startup so Ill have to crack that nut first.

thanks for your help.

9

A few years later. But changing the “shader type” of the material fixed it for me!!! Make sure it does’nt have an opacity shader applied.

10

If there is people coming here because there is no shadow in the viewport but there is in the rendering,

  • check in the option of your main light ( me was the sun as a directional light )
  • uncheck "Cast Shadows From Cinematic Object Only