Flat Shadows
A production-ready implementation of a classic planar shadows technique for modern URP projects.
by Siarožka
Price History +
Flat Shadows is a production-ready impementation of a classic real-time rendering technique that projects 3D-object geometry onto a flat surface.
Targeted for stylized games—especially projects that intentionally aim for a retro or old-school visual style.
✅ Features:
- Always sharp, crisp shadows with no blur, aliasing, hard edge holes, peter-panning, shadow acne, or cascade seams.
- Handles common implementation challenges such as proper culling, vertex deformation, and alpha clipping.
- Two shadow color modes: physically-inspired lighting approximation or simple artistic control.
- Supports freely oriented floor planes.
- Supports multiple directional lights.
- Several setup options for balancing simplicity and performance.
- Works alongside Unity’s built-in shadow system.
- No dependecies from other assets.
- Demo scene and complete user guide included.
⚠️ Considerations:
- This is not a replacement for traditional shadow mapping. By design, these shadows are only suitable for relatively flat environments with minimal height variation.
- This technique is bandwidth-friendly and can improve performance on tile-based GPUs. However, on platforms where toggling shadow maps or depth textures don't cause significant FPS drops, the performance boost is unlikely to be noticeable.
❌ Limitations:
- Only directional lights
- No stereo rendering support (XR / VR)
