Effects & Atmosphere
Shadow pools (fake contact shadows)
A flat, soft dark disc you drop under an object so it reads as sitting on the ground: no shadow-casting light, and almost no cost.
Open in the interactive manual →The interactive version has full-text search, a table of contents, and light/dark themes.
The quickest way to make an object stop looking like it's hovering is to put a shadow under it. A shadow pool is exactly that: a flat, soft, dark disc, a painted-on contact shadow that costs almost nothing and needs no shadow-casting light at all.
Add one from Create ▸ Other ▸ Shadow Pool. It arrives lying flat just above the ground; move it under the object you want to ground, and nudge its size until it looks right.
Controls
| Control | Does |
|---|---|
| Radius | How wide the disc is, in meters. Roughly match the object's footprint: a touch smaller usually reads better than a touch larger. |
| Strength | How dark the shadow is, 0 to 1. Bright outdoor scenes want more; soft interiors want less. |
| Softness | The edge falloff, 0 to 1. Near 0 gives a crisp-edged disc (an object resting flat on the floor); near 1 gives a gauzy smudge (something raised, or lit from a big soft source). |
| Color | Black by default. Tinting it toward the ground color or the sky bounce often looks more natural than pure black. |
When to use one
- Instead of a real shadow. Real shadows need a shadow-casting light and there's a budget on how many can cast at once. A shadow pool is free of that entirely.
- Under an imported model that landed slightly off the floor and looks like it's levitating.
- On mobile-heavy scenes, where you'd rather spend the frame budget somewhere else. It's one flat quad with a generated gradient on it, about as cheap as drawing gets.
Keep it just above the floor
A shadow pool starts a centimeter above
y = 0 so it lies cleanly on a ground plane. Drop it to exactly the floor's height and the two surfaces fight for the same pixels (you'll see flickering); raise it a hair instead.Editor and published view alike
Shadow pools are ordinary scene nodes: they render the same in the editor, the preview, and your published page. They're a hand-placed tool for now: the Assistant and MCP can't create them yet.
Spotted something off, or want a topic covered? Email hello@3dcms.info.