Square shadow follows player character

anonymous_user_db33551c · May 20, 2020, 1:04pm

I have an issue when I launch a game with a first-person character, and it happens to all my projects! The problem is, that there always is a square shadow (sometimes other shapes) that follows the character somewhere on the ground. I’ve tried to make the character hidden in game, to uncheck the “cast shadow” box, to disable the interaction with raytracing but nothing works. I am quite new to Unreal Engine so there’s probably something I’m missing but I can’t figure out what it is. I’m running the software on a MacBook Pro 2018 with the macOS Catalina 10.15.4. I hope that someone out there has the answer! Thanks

ClockworkOcean · May 20, 2020, 1:30pm

It’s looking like you’ve tweaked the character and left a mesh in there.

To find out what it is, while playing just hit F8 to pop out of the player and take a look at what it is…

To fix it you need to edit the character again.

anonymous_user_db33551c · May 20, 2020, 2:12pm

Thanks a lot for your answer! Unfortunately this also happens with pre-made blueprints like the default first-person shooter character. I’ve attached a short video of it with a totally “untouched” first-person shooter:

ClockworkOcean · May 20, 2020, 6:17pm

Did you see anything when you came out of the character?

Does it defintely happen in new projects ( not new levels )?

Have you tried re-adding the FP content pack? ( NOTE this will overwrite any changes you made to the default character ):

ClockworkOcean · May 21, 2020, 6:32pm

Did you try re-adding the 3rd person ( like above )?

anonymous_user_db33551c · May 21, 2020, 6:33pm

I did - a couple of times even, but it didn’t work for me

anonymous_user_db33551c · May 21, 2020, 6:35pm

I feel like it must be some kind of general setting since it’s on every project like this, right?

anonymous_user_db33551c · May 21, 2020, 6:30pm

Can’t see anything that shouldn’t be there when pressing f8, but the problem also only occurs when in launched mode, and I guess you can’t enter spectator mode when launched…(?)
Unfortunately yes, it’s on every project…
I tried testing on a new project with a third-person character to see if the problem persisted and it did. I disabled raytracing but the problem doesn’t seem to be there either.
The video of the third-person test:

ClockworkOcean · May 21, 2020, 6:44pm

Ah, you ticked the square above the player box, didn’t you!?

Just kidding… ;-/

But, two more things, then I give up.

I couldn’t help noticing in your GIF here, there are squares in the level, the same size as the shadow… what could that mean?
You could also try verifying the engine:

anonymous_user_db33551c · June 3, 2020, 9:56am

Hey man, sorry I ran into some pretty busy times!
But thanks a lot for all your advise - tried it out but unfortunately I didn’t manage to solve the problem. Still appreciate that you took some time though, thanks!
I will return when I solve this mystery and report where the problem was

thejturner · October 6, 2020, 2:51pm

Did you ever find a solution? I’ve been having the same issue since 4.24 but it only seems to appear on Mac systems with Intel Integrated Graphics. I never really had a chance to investigate it before and the issue was just annoying and relatively minor. However with a recent build of my project I’m now seeing a massive shadow that moves with player camera and practically covers the view and ruins the experience. Will report back if I find out any workarounds and will certainly file a big report.

It is almost as if a single shadow map has been attached to the player camera. My scene uses fully dynamic light and is lit predominantly by a single Directional Light.

anonymous_user_db33551c · October 6, 2020, 4:19pm

Never found a solution, unfortunately, so please let me know if you do!

I’ve only ever had this problem (though I’ve had it more than once) on a mac set-up as well, so that might be the part of the reason…

Still seems like a pretty severe problem, and It’s frustrating that there’s seemingly no fix for it.

Good luck with it! I hope you figure it out!

thejturner · October 7, 2020, 4:01pm

Not much luck so far but I can confirm that switching to Forward Shading seems to eliminate the problem in my level. Not ideal but since I’m making a VR/FirstPerson experience it makes sense for me to switch to Forward. Still I’ll make a bug report asap…

ClockworkOcean · October 7, 2020, 6:17pm

If you can batch this up into a small project I will download it and take a look.

thejturner · October 9, 2020, 7:15pm

Some updates…

I was incorrect regarding Forward Shading as the issue persists in my project.

So far the only solutions I have are…

Move everything into the 2nd lighting channel. This seems to be the cleanest fix at the moment. I haven’t tested it much but everything seems to be normal except for the character’s own shadow is rendered as a small flickering dot.
Set the directional light to use 1 light cascade. The shadows look bad but the moving shadows are barely noticeable. Might be usable if you could detect machines using Intel Integrated Graphics and force them to only 1 cascade.

I have submitted a bug report. For those that want to recreate the bug, follow these steps…

Make sure you are using a Mac with Intel Integrated Graphics and no additional video card
Make a new project using the First Person Template
Open the default First Person template map
Set the directional light to movable and make a packaged build
You should see a large square shadow on the ground that follows the location of the character

thejturner · October 10, 2020, 7:39pm

I also notice that this bug seems to only affect Static Meshes placed in the level. If I make a BP that converts them to instances(HISM) then I don’t see the shadow bugs.