When I increase CSM count, the distance shadows appear decreases

Development Rendering
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1

Here is an example of my problem, when I increase the shadow cascade count from 4 to 5, the distance that shadows cast decrease. I am not sure if this is a bug or if there is something that needs to be changed on my end somewhere?

Not sure if related or not but I noticed that “Far Shadow Cascade Count” seems new, or something I never noticed before 4.24 I tried playing around with that but didn’t notice anything different happening.

I have made sure that max shadow cascades is high enough (set to 10)

Here is a clip:

2

Weirdly, after switching to static and then back (I am using dynamic lighting) the problem seemed to resolve.

Might be something weird going from transitioning from 4.23 to 4.24. I will test a bit and make sure it “stuck” but maybe that re-initialized some settings.

3

There’s a few things that could be causing it.

Distance is too short (
Transition fraction is off somehow
Fadeout fraction is off somehow
Inset shadows is off (after distance is reached from the camera for CSM, inset shadows on movable objects with it enabled have their shadows)

I use 4.23.1 and Far Shadow Cascade Count is in there, so it’s not new to 4.24 entirely, though could still be a really new feature. Enabling static shadows allows the shadows to remain after CSM is at its limit from the camera (Dynamic Shadow Distance Stationary/Movable). Enable static shadows on the directional light, and the applicable meshes, to get that. I’ve seen the same problem in 4.23.1 when settings weren’t right in CSM. So it requires some tweaking…and not always of one setting only.

4

Odd. Wonder what it was. Far Shadow Cascade covers between the far extent of the regular CMS and Whole Scene Dynamic Shadow Radius. So, perhaps WSDS Radius in one of .ini files was offset somehow until switching to static and back to dynamic.

How far away from the level was the camera in the screenshot? The CSM in your settings is set to 41000, which looks like it could be farther away than that. In the case it was farther away than 41000, you were probably seeing the fade region from the far extent to no shadows or the next shadowing type (not CSM) available.