Renderer Feature Settings

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The settings inspector

Select a renderer asset and expand Sharp Stencil Shadows. Settings are grouped in foldouts, most important first. A setting is greyed out while other settings make it irrelevant, and a greyed-out group names what it requires. Hover a setting for a short description.

Settings marked Script can also be changed at runtime. See Scripting API.

General

Lighting Mode

How shadows combine with lighting: Overlay or URP Lighting. See Lighting modes.

Default: Overlay. Script.

Caster Layers

Mesh Renderers and Skinned Mesh Renderers on these layers cast shadows.

Default: Everything.

Shadow LOD

Which level of an LOD Group, or of a mesh with Mesh LOD (Unity 6.2+), casts. Match Camera: each camera's shadows come from the level it draws. LOD0: LOD0 always casts, whichever level is on screen. See LOD groups and Mesh LOD.

Default: Match Camera. Script.

Shadow Color

The color shadows blend toward in Overlay mode, and on cameras that fall back to Overlay. Unused in URP Lighting.

Default: black.

Shadow Strength

Overlay: how far shadows blend toward Shadow Color. URP Lighting: the share of a light's direct contribution a shadow removes.

Default: 0.7. Range: 0 to 1.

Terminator Shadow Fade

Overlay only. The N·L range over which shadows fade out as a caster's surface turns away from the light. See Terminator shadow fade.

Default: 0.2. Range: 0.01 to 1.

Self Shadows

Lets eligible opaque casters shadow their own light-facing surfaces, such as a building's interior. Off clears a caster's own shadow from its whole visible surface. See Shadows on the casters themselves.

Default: off. Script.

Include Scene View

Render shadows in Scene view cameras.

Default: on.

Performance

Backend

Where volumes are generated: Auto, Cpu, or Gpu. See Volume generation backends.

Default: Auto. Script.

GPU Deformed Meshes

Read compute-deformed Mesh Renderers from their current vertex buffer each frame. Off, they cast their rest pose. See GPU-deformed mesh casters.

Default: on. Requires: Backend not Cpu. Script.

Force Skinned Updates

Enable Update When Offscreen on skinned casters while they are on the GPU, so their shadows animate while the renderer is off screen.

Default: on. Requires: Backend not Cpu.

Discovery Refresh Interval

Seconds between scene scans for new or removed casters. See Caster discovery.

Default: 1. Minimum: 0.1.

Point & Spot Lights

Requires Lighting Mode: URP Lighting. See Point and spot lights.

Light Layers

Point and spot lights on these GameObject layers can cast stencil shadows.

Default: Everything. Script.

Max Shadowed Lights

Per-camera budget of point and spot lights with stencil shadows. The lights nearest the camera win.

Default: 4. Range: 0 to 7. Script.

Transparent Casters

See Transparent and Translucent Casters.

Mode

How alpha-clipped and transparent casters cast: Off, Uniform Opacity, or Textured.

Default: Textured. Script.

Colored Transmittance

Tint the main light's partial shadows from transparent casters by their transmitted color. Exact on receivers using Sharp Stencil Shadows/Lit, approximate on stock URP shaders.

Default: off. Requires: URP Lighting, Mode not Off. Script.

Local Light Transmittance

Transparent casters cast colored, partial point and spot light shadows on receivers using Sharp Stencil Shadows/Lit.

Default: off. Requires: URP Lighting, Mode not Off, Max Shadowed Lights above 0. Script.

Caster Atlas

Requires Transparent Casters Mode: Textured. See Caster Atlas.

Resolution

Side length in texels of the main light's caster atlas.

Default: 2048. Range: 256 to 8192, power of two.

Local Light Resolution

Side length in texels of the point and spot light caster atlas.

Default: 2048. Range: 256 to 8192, power of two. Requires: URP Lighting, Max Shadowed Lights above 0.

Texel Density

Atlas texels per screen pixel across a caster.

Default: 1. Range: 0.25 to 4.

Max Tile Size

The largest tile one caster may use.

Default: 8192. Range: 32 to 8192.

Detail Levels

Distance bands of atlas detail. Each band past the first halves texel density. One level disables the bands.

Default: 1. Range: 1 to 4.

Detail Distances

Camera distances, in world units, where each further detail level starts.

Default: 15, 40, 100. Requires: Detail Levels above 1.

Shadow Stretch

Extra texels for shadows a low light stretches across horizontal receivers.

Default: 0. Range: 0 to 1.

Shrink Distant First

When tiles don't fit, the most distant casters' tiles shrink first. With it off, all tiles shrink together.

Default: on.

Continuous Tile Sizes

Tiles use the number of texels their density asks for. Off, they round up to a power of two.

Default: on.

Receiver Sizing

Size tiles for the distance to the surfaces each shadow falls on, measured on the GPU, instead of the distance to the caster.

Default: on. Script.

Filtering

How shadows are reconstructed between atlas texels: Match Caster, Nearest, Bilinear, or Bicubic. See Filtering.

Default: Match Caster.

Planar Alignment

Flat casters get tiles aligned with their own surface, so straight texture rows cast straight shadow edges.

Default: on.

Depth Bias and Normal Bias

Caster-side depth and normal offsets, in atlas texels. Raise to remove acne on atlas casters, or lower them if their shadows detach.

Default: 1 each. Range: 0 to 10.

Advanced

Stencil Mask

The low stencil bits the feature owns: 0x03, 0x07, 0x0F, 0x1F, 0x3F, 0x7F, or 0xFF. The highest owned bit holds the shadow union and the rest are a per-caster counter. Use a wider mask if meshes with many stacked layers lose shadows in Overlay mode, and a narrower one to free bits for other stencil effects. URP Lighting mode counts in its own stencil target with all eight bits, whatever the mask. On Deferred and Deferred+, Overlay needs 0x0F or less. See The owned stencil bits.

Default: 0x0F. Script.

Minimum Extrusion Distance

The minimum distance, in world units, directional light volumes extrude away from the light. Volumes always extend until they leave the camera's view, so this rarely needs changing.

Default: 100. Minimum: 1.

Topology Weld Tolerance

Distance within which vertex positions are joined when building mesh topology. See Seam welding.

Default: 0.0001.

Debug

Diagnostics

Log one-time warnings about skipped casters, fallbacks, and unsupported configurations. Also enables GPU overflow checks. See Troubleshooting.

Default: on.

Debug Visualization

Draw the shadow volumes over the scene.

Default: off. Script.

Shader Resources

The five shaders the feature uses, assigned by the installer. Run the installer to repair them.