Shadow Receiver uses a custom shader to render real-time shadows onto any 3D object. The shadows can be cast from any real-time light in Unity!

Made for the High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP).

Universal Render Pipeline (URP) version here.

🧾 Features

👉 Real-time shadow receiving/casting onto invisible objects

👉 Directional Light & Additional Lights support

👉 Deferred and Forward supported

👉 Set the shadow color

👉 Set the shadow transparency

👉 Enable or disable shadow types

👉 Support for multiple shadow cascades

👉 Support for soft shadows and hard shadows

👉 Support for Light Layers

👉 Support for shadow quality tiers

👉 VR Supported (multi pass and single pass instanced)

📱 Augmented Reality/Mixed Reality

Shadow Receiver is mostly used in AR/MR to render shadows on planes detected with plane detection. This way, an AR object can have realistic real-time shadows in AR. This creates a more immersive AR experience.

Of course, feel free to use this for any other project you see fit!

🎥 Video Compositing/Virtual Production

Shadow Receiver can be used well with video compositing in Unity. As long as your video uses alpha clipping to be able to cast shadows, you can get real-time shadows below it.

🛠 Technicals

Only works in High Definition Render Pipeline

Tested in Unity 2022.3LTS and Unity 6 (2021.3 should work unofficially)

Works with directional, additional, and area lights.