Mastering Shadows By Olivier Saraja

There are a few pre-requisites for Blender before being able to cast shadows. They won't be reminded anymore during this tutorial.

In the Material Buttons (F5-KEY):

• Materials who should have a shadow must be set with the "Shadow" button 'on' (default in Blender). By enabling this button, Blender calculates a shadow for this object.
• Materials which should receive the shadow of another object should have the "Shadowless" button set 'off' (default in Blender). By enabling this button, Blender won't cast shadow over this object.


As these are defaults Blender values, you shouldn't ever bother about them, at first.

In the Lamp Buttons (F4-KEY) :

• The only lamp type than can be used for casting shadows is the Spot.
• The Spot lamp should have the "Shadows" button set to 'on' (default in Blender). The Spot then cast lights AND shadows.
• The Spot lamp could be set to "Only Shadow" if there's another lamp in your scene. The Spot then ONLY cast shadows, but no light.


The default Blender lamp is the Lamp, which doesn't cast shadow, so you HAVE to set at least a light source as a Spot if you want to cast shadows. Please note that among all the lamp types available within Blender, Spot is the ONLY one that can cast shadows at all.

• The "Shadows" button should be set to 'on'.


The default value for this button in Blender is 'off', so don't forget about it if you want to cast shadows at all !