# Why are my shadows disappearing after baking?

**URL:** <https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/why-are-my-shadows-disappearing-after-baking/414815>\
**Category:** Programming & Scripting\
**Tags:** unreal-engine\
**Created:** [January 17, 2018, 6:32pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/why-are-my-shadows-disappearing-after-baking/414815 "2018-01-17T18:32:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![TristonS](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@TristonS](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/TristonS)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2018, 6:32pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/why-are-my-shadows-disappearing-after-baking/414815/1 "2018-01-17T18:32:19Z")

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I have these static meshes which appear to be rendering fine with the default light and sky, however, after I bake them, the shadows lose much of there form leaving behind only part of the shadow.

The shadows appear fine on the structure to the right of these meshes. They are all static.The light source (default, intensity lowered) is stationary.

[Image](https://i.imgur.com/gQ0r6P5.jpg)

Thanks for any help, I have attempted for hours now to correct this with no luck.

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**Author:** ![vr\_marco](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/vr_marco/32/1194556_2.png) [@vr\_marco](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/vr_marco)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2018, 8:05pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/why-are-my-shadows-disappearing-after-baking/414815/2 "2018-01-17T20:05:25Z")

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Try increasing the lightmap resolution of your landscape (terrain).

BTW, this is a great reference for troubleshooting lights/shadows related issues:

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>
> After over a year in maintenance mode, the official Unreal Engine Wiki is now permanently offline. These resources now live on a new community-run Unreal Engine Community Wiki — ue4community.wiki! You will be able to find content from the official...

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**Author:** ![TristonS](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@TristonS](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/TristonS)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 3:12am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/why-are-my-shadows-disappearing-after-baking/414815/3 "2018-01-18T03:12:48Z")

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Thank you Marco! I had actually used that guide extensively to remove modular seams from my map so that is embarrassing.

I was able to fix my problem by increase “Static Lighting Resolution” from 1 to 4 in the landscapes details.

I could not find a specific setting to change lightmap resolution like you can with static mesh. Was “Static lighting resolution” the correct property to change? (It looks good, just wondering from performance perspective).

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**Author:** ![vr\_marco](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/vr_marco/32/1194556_2.png) [@vr\_marco](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/vr_marco)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 6:28am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/why-are-my-shadows-disappearing-after-baking/414815/4 "2018-01-18T06:28:49Z")

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Yes, that is the right property to change. There is for sure a small hit on performances, but since the shadows are baked into the lightmap of of the terrain, it is not that dramatic. It is more memory usage. If you would use dynamic lights then that would definitely make a difference.

If you are curious, you can use UE4’s profiler to check for performances with lowres shadows and highres shadows, then compare them.