Tutorial: Realistic Translucent Shadows With Unreal Engine 5

In Unreal Engine 5, Lumen doesn't support Translucent Shadows. While you can enable them using Cast Dynamic Shadow as Masked, the shadow's opacity will match that of an opaque mesh, leading to an unnatural appearance. Lucian Stroiny, also known as PolySphere Studio, who recently shared an excellent tutorial on optimization in Unreal Engine 5 using Instanced Static Meshes, has released a new video offering a workaround that gives you control over the intensity of shadows.

In this guide, you'll learn how to simulate the translucent shadow/caustic effect with a technique that allows you to control the shadow's intensity while adapting to dynamic lighting scenarios. After publishing this tutorial, the developer shared that he found a solution to improve the material for faking the caustic effect. It looks promising, so Part 2 will be coming soon.

Stay tuned and follow Lucian's YouTube channel for more tutorials and overviews of his assets:

We also recommend checking out Dallas Drapeau's videos on common misconceptions about Unreal Engine 5's optimization features and creating your first Nanite foliage:

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