I’m a beginner in unreal engine 5 … Light tutorials say that i can make shadows soft bu changing source radius
But when i increase source radius i get no change and shadows still sharp
Anyone can help ?!
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same question.
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same question… watched lots of tutorials, everyone seems to be getting Soft shadows right off the bat with the Rect Light, but i keep getting jagged harsh shadows…
Adjusting Source Radius for point light doesn’t work either
Any tips will be gladly appreciated!
I had the same question. I believe the solution is to toggle on the “Distance Field Shadows” property of your light actor. Unsure if this fully resolves the issue, but it seems to be working so far. Maybe someone else can confirm.
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Hello!
If I understand correctly, you want to make the shadows edges softer, in order to make that happen is necessary to increase the value of the “Source Radius”
Here is an example of a shadow with the Source Radius at value 0
if you increase the value of the “Source Radius” the shadow edges will blur out, here is the same light with the value increased
is important that if you have multiple light sources with “cast shadows” change the source radius of all of them, or make so just one light cast shadows on the objetct in order to make the shadow softer at the edges
Hope this helps!
I’m a beginner too, watching Lighting in Unreal Engine 5 for Beginners by Willliam Faucher on YouTube.
I have found two settings that makes large Source Radius produce soft shadows.
The first I got from JediahSol above, which is to enable Distance Field Shadows on the Light and also Generate Mesh Distance Field in the Project Settings.
The second way is to set Project Settings > Shadow Map Method to Virtual Shadow Maps. This is the type of shadow produced from lights that don’t have Distance Field Shadows enabled.
Distance Field Shadows seems to override Virtual Shadow Maps, meaning that I get the same shadows with Distance Field Shadows enabled on the Light regardless of what the Shadow Method project setting is set to. The project setting kicks in when Distance Field Shadows is disabled.
When the project setting is set to Shadow Maps then non-Distance Field Shadows are hard-edged regardless of the Source Radius on the Light. Change to Virtual Shadow Maps to get soft shadows.
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I think I figured it out now!
project setting - platforms - window - Default RHI - set it to ‘DirectX 12’
(this may get you the ‘video memory has been exhausted’ message on the viewport but it works!
switching to DirectX 12 might affect entire the lighting and the mood of your scene.
You could use spot Light instead of Point Light. It still makes soft shadow in DirectX 11 as far as I’ve tested!
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You have to check “Distance Field Shadows” check box in Point light obj
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