I would like to display a simple round drop shadow under a Mesh. The drop shadow should be a cheap round dark spot on whatever surface is below the Mesh at any time. I cannot use the built-in three.js shadowMap feature as it is too expensive, even when I set it to use three.BasicShadowMap. Furtherm…

Prerender it. Use something like 3ds max, or blender. Before that ask the artist or whomever provided these many meshes to generate the fake shadow as part of the asset. If not possible and you are dynamically generating this, then do it yourself. Either setup bhv, path trace the shadow. Or render …

I can’t prerender. The meshes move around in the scene (they are parts of props in a game engine).

What is your question then? You want to some how render shadow maps without rendering shadow maps?

A sphere possibly, ellipsoid then.

[image] torrent: both the platform AND the ground will receive the shadow. This only sounds right if you have receiveShadow set on the ground mesh, is that correct?

Yes, but I need the ground to receive shadows as well.

I want the following: A cheaper looking drop shadow than what three.js offers, ideally just a simple round dark spot that doesn’t change shape no matter the shape of the mesh casting it. The drop shadow must not penetrate meshes (as described in the ground/platform example in my original post).

Bind plane under mesh with round shadow textute [shadow_tree — копия] [maxresdefault]

[image] Chaser_Code: Bind plane under mesh with round shadow textute This could work if the ground is completely flat, however it sounds like the “platforms” are elevated and may all be at differing heights, one option could be to implement something similar to @prisoner849 ‘s example here Li…

[image] Lawrence3DPK: LightNoise (selective bloom + noise) Yes, I thought about this approach, but then, I recalled another one: Newton's Cradle + glowing spheres

Fastest/most efficient way to render a simple round (non-penetrating) drop shadow under a Mesh?

Questions

prisoner849 January 25, 2026, 7:27pm 11

Yes, I thought about this approach, but then, I recalled another one: Newton's Cradle + glowing spheres

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Fastest/most efficient way to render a simple round (non-penetrating) drop shadow under a Mesh?

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