Shadow Configuration

Genesis lets every material override how it receives shadows — color, softness, intensity, and even a hatched or cross-pattern overlay. It works with URP’s shadow cascades and pairs with the optional PCSS module for soft contact shadows.

When to use it

Stylized characters that need a warm-key, cool-shadow balance without lighting overrides.
Mobile projects that want soft-looking shadows without the cost of PCSS.
Toon materials that need a hard shadow edge separate from cel banding.
Blob-shadow proxies under animated characters where receive-shadows is off.

Difference from Cel Shading

Cel Shading bands the light direction (NdotL). Shadow Configuration tints the cast shadow from other meshes. Both can run together — cel handles self-shadowing, shadow config handles cascade-projected shadows.

How it works

When Receive Shadows is on, Genesis samples the main-light shadow attenuation, biases it by _ShadowSoftness, then blends the lit color toward _ShadowColor by _ShadowIntensity. An optional pattern texture is sampled in screen space and masked by the attenuation, so patterns appear only inside shadowed regions.

Properties

Inspector label	Shader property	Type	Default	Description
Receive Shadows	_ReceiveShadows	Toggle	On	Must match the renderer's Receive Shadows checkbox.
Shadow Color	_ShadowColor	Color	RGB(0.10, 0.12, 0.20)	Tint multiplied into shadowed regions.
Intensity	_ShadowIntensity	Float (0–1)	1.0	0 = no darkening, 1 = full tint.
Softness	_ShadowSoftness	Float (0–1)	0.1	Smoothstep width applied to the shadow attenuation.
Shadow Pattern	_ShadowPattern	Texture2D	None	Optional screen-space hatching or dot overlay.
Pattern Scale	_ShadowPatternScale	Float (0.1–8)	1.0	Tiling of the pattern in screen space.
Pattern Strength	_ShadowPatternStrength	Float (0–1)	0.5	Blend amount for the pattern overlay.

Usage

Make sure Receive Shadows is enabled on the mesh renderer and in this block.
Pick a Shadow Color complementary to your key light; cool shadows under a warm key read cinematic.
Dial Softness to taste — 0.05–0.15 matches URP defaults, higher reads as painted.
Optionally assign a Shadow Pattern for a hand-drawn or comic-book look.


material.SetColor("_ShadowColor", new Color(0.18f, 0.22f, 0.42f));
material.SetFloat("_ShadowIntensity", 0.85f);
material.SetFloat("_ShadowSoftness", 0.12f);

Tips & gotchas

The pattern is screen-space and will not track the surface. That is intentional for the comic look; for surface-locked hatching, use Artistic Effects.
Cascade seams show up faster with high softness. Use the PCSS module if you need genuinely soft cast shadows.
Toon and shadow tint double-darken if both the shadow color and the cel shadow color are very dark. Pick one to do the heavy lifting.
The pattern texture must be single-pass-stereo aware in VR; Genesis ships one that is.

Cel Shading — self-shadow banding.
Artistic Effects — surface-locked hatching.
PCSS Shadow Module — soft contact shadows.
Blob Shadow Module — projected blob shadows for mobile.