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Enable lights to cast shadows

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Learn to set the Environment, Spot, and Parallel lights to cast shadows in a 3D composition.

  Use new beta features

Enabling lights to cast shadows is now available for testing and feedback. Try it now in After Effects (beta).

Get started

Adding multiple shadow-casting lights to a 3D scene can enhance dynamic lighting, making the environment feel truly alive. When working with the Advanced 3D render engine, you can add Spot, Parallel, and Environment lights and enable them to cast shadows. These capabilities allow you to layer different types of shadows from various supported light sources. By working with different colors of lights and shadows in the 3D layers, you can compose 3D scenes that create real-world or experimental additive-color shadows.

The latest update allows you to add up to eight separate Spot and Parallel light sources that can cast shadows, in addition to one Environment shadow layer to enhance the realism and depth of your 3D scenes.

A few examples where multiple light sources of various types are added, each set to cast shadows:

A 3D scene with no lights.

Featuring a Spot light positioned at the lower-right and a Parallel light placed on the right, each with distinct colors and shadow settings.

The 3D scene with additional Spot and Parallel lights, each positioned in various directions, with different colors and shadow configurations.

An environment light added and layered among the list of existing Spot and Parallel lights.

The OBJ 3D model used can be found here.

Before you begin

Create a new composition with the desired settings and set up a 3D scene by adding 3D models and 3D layers.

  1. Add a light by selecting Layer > New > Light.

  2. In the Light Settings dialog box, assign a name to the light layer and select Spotlight, Parallel, or Environment from the Light Type dropdown menu.

  3. Change the Color of the light if needed.

    The Light Settings dialog box is currently open, offering a selection of colors in the Light Color prompt. The chosen color will determine the light's hue in the 3D scene.
    Choose the light color to set the tone, enhance realism, and highlight key elements.

  4. Set the intensity of the light to a desired level and adjust the following settings:

    • Cone Angle: Use it to adjust the spotlight beam's width to control how broad or focused the spotlight appears in your scene. Available only for Spot lights. 
    • Cone Feather: Use it to adjust how soft or sharp the edges of the light cone appear. Available only for Spot lights. 
    • Falloff: Define how the light's intensity diminishes over distance by choosing from None, Smooth, or Inverse Squared Clamped. Adjust the Radius and Falloff Distance to achieve more realistic lighting effects.
    The Light Settings dialog box is open with the Spot light selected. The light color, intensity, cone angle, and cone feather are adjusted to modify the Spot light's appearance in the 3D scene.
    Adjust the Cone Feather value of a Spot light to soften the edges of the light, creating a more gradual transition from light to shadow.

  5. Select Cast Shadows to enable the light to cast shadows.

    The Light Settings dialog box is open with the Casts Shadows option selected, enabling the light to cast shadows in the 3D scene.
    Adjust the lighting to create shadows, making the scene more realistic and ensuring it interacts naturally with other 3D objects.

    If you’ve already added the lights to the composition, you can enable shadow casting by selecting Cast Shadows under the light settings in the Timeline or Properties panel. If no shadow appears, you might need to enable some 3D layer properties. Refer to step 9 for details.

    In the Timeline panel, a Spot light's properties are listed and under Light Options, the Cast Shadows property is turned on.
    Set the light to cast shadows in a 3D scene using the Timeline or Properties panel.

  6. Adjust the additional shadow settings:

    • Shadow Darkness: Adjust it to make shadows lighter or darker.

    A Spot light with Shadow Darkness set to 50%.

    A Spot light with Shadow Darkness set to 100%.

    • Shadow Diffusion: Adjust this setting to control how soft or sharp the shadows appear. Available only for Spot lights.

    A Spot light with Shadow Diffusion set to 0 pixels.

    A Spot light with Shadow Diffusion set to 100 pixels.

    Note:

    Sharp-edged shadows render the fastest. Increasing the Shadow Diffusion value will create softer shadows, but may take longer to render.

  7. Use the Render Options to enhance the quality of Spot and Parallel lights by adjusting the Render Quality slider. Additionally, you can configure the casting box properties, as well as the Resolution and Smoothness settings for Environment light, which do not affect Spot or Parallel lights.

    The Advanced 3D Render Options dialog box is open and there are settings that you can adjust for rendering and shadows. The Render Quality is currently set to 65.
    Change the Render Quality to adjust the resolution and smoothness of the final output.

    Tip:

    Adjust the Render Quality to low for interactive tasks like previews or editing. Increase it for the final output according to the project's specific requirements. Low to midrange quality settings are often sufficient for the final export and will render more quickly.

  8. You can configure up to eight individual Spot and Parallel light sources to cast shadows, along with one Environment shadow layer, making a total of nine shadow-casting sources.

    If you include more than eight Spot or Parallel lights in a scene, only the top eight in the timeline stack will cast shadows. The lights positioned lower in the stack will still provide illumination, but they won't cast shadows.

  9. To enable your 3D layers to receive and cast shadows, select the 3D layer in the timeline. Next, use the Material Options for solid layers and the Compositing Options to turn on the Accept Shadows and Cast Shadows functions.

    In the Timeline panel, the 3D layers' properties are expanded. For the layer with the 3D model, the lights and shadows are enabled under Compositing Options. For the Solid 3D layer, the lights and shadows are enabled under Material Options.
    Enable the lights and shadows properties for 3D layers to allow them to both receive and cast shadows.

    Tip:

    Try changing the shadow colors on receiving layers to override the color of the received shadow.

  10. Adjust the Position, Orientation, and Rotation of your lights to change the direction of the shadows, and use respective keyframes to animate them according to your requirements.

Be part of the discussion on support for Spot and Parallel light shadows in the After Effects beta community.

Additional resources

Help us to make the next releases of After Effects our best yet.
Submit feature requests, view, track, and vote for issues/feature requests using the After Effects beta support community.

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