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I want to do NPR animations, which require me to control the shadows on the mesh, however this is where I come into the problem at hand. I already found a way to control the "shadow" on the mesh, but this technique doesn't allow other meshes to cast shadows onto it. So is it possible, hopefully through nodes, to disable self casting shadows but keep received shadows and cast shadows? If not then I'll have to find some way to reduce the intensity of the shadows cast onto the mesh by the sun but keep received shadows intensity.

I'm using blender 2.92 and eevee render engine

This is how I see it, unless I'm wrong. Its weird I know, but this is kinda how I understand it based on what I've messed with.

Casting shadow is when the mesh blocks the sun. Receive shadow is when on mesh casts a shadow onto another mesh. Self shadow is when shadows are cast by the sun unto the mesh using the meshes own geometry.

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ do you mean like this blue cylinder? [1]: i.stack.imgur.com/gKM2u.png $\endgroup$
    – Chris
    May 17, 2021 at 10:05
  • $\begingroup$ It's hard to explain, but I'll try harder. Basically I want to disable the mesh from casting a shadow onto its self but still receive shadows from other meshes and still castes a shadow onto other meshes. If it's not possible then I have to find a way to extremely lessen the shadows cast by the sun but retain the intensity of shadows cast by other meshes. $\endgroup$
    – Juko The10-Tails
    May 17, 2021 at 22:08
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    $\begingroup$ I understand what you mean. But I'm not sure you realize what you mean: first let's say that nothing casts a shadow on an object, and so it only has "self shadows". Those "self shadows" is the basic of the shading, giving a different color to a texel depending on the amount of light it receives - if you disable that, you no longer can see the shape, only the outline. So you want to achieve this: i.imgur.com/kRHVgpb.png $\endgroup$
    – Markus von Broady
    May 18, 2021 at 10:26
  • $\begingroup$ It's hard to explain but in a scene with multiple characters, I can't position the sun how I want, otherwise it will look good on one mesh but not the others, do to being in different positions but if the sun is left in its default position, the self cast shadows look ugly. So I need something that allows me to control the shadows, on individual meshes, while still being able to receive shadows from other meshes. $\endgroup$
    – Juko The10-Tails
    May 26, 2021 at 1:14

1 Answer 1

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for eevee use this node setup:

[1]: https://i.stack.imgur.com/gKM2u.png

important: this works only with:

Blend mode: alpha blend Shadow mode: alpha hashed (none works too)

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ That's part of it. It disabled self shadows and allows other meshes to cast a shadow onto it, but it's not casting a shadow onto other meshes. $\endgroup$
    – Juko The10-Tails
    May 17, 2021 at 22:04
  • $\begingroup$ I don’t understand. What is the difference between self shadow and casting shadows on other objects?! $\endgroup$
    – Chris
    May 17, 2021 at 22:21
  • $\begingroup$ Please add a screenshot to your question - what you want to have! $\endgroup$
    – Chris
    May 17, 2021 at 22:22
  • $\begingroup$ There you go, this is probably not how others see it, but this is how I see it, as a beginner. $\endgroup$
    – Juko The10-Tails
    May 17, 2021 at 22:34

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