Shadow Catcher Quad, Captured Shadow Display Quad, and Center Shadow Catcher Quad

Shadow Catcher Quad

The Shadow Catcher Quad is a quad in the scene that uses the ShadowCatcher material. It is the surface onto which realtime shadows are cast.

• In Shadow Capture Studio: The quad defines the capture plane for baking. A temporary orthographic camera is aligned to it (position in front, same rotation), and the quad’s scale (e.g. Y) drives the camera’s orthographic size. During bake, the quad is moved to a temporary render layer so only the shadow catcher and the interactable are rendered; the result is read back into a texture and saved as the baked shadow sprite.

• In Shadow Match System: When pixel-comparison matching is used, the Shadow Catcher Quad is the surface that receives the player’s realtime shadow. The shadow capture camera is set up to match the quad’s position, rotation, and scale so the render matches the baked reference. The quad must be assigned and active for pixel comparison to work.

Position the Shadow Catcher Quad so its Z aligns with the picture frame plane (the plane where the puzzle shadow should appear).

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Captured Shadow Display Quad

The Captured Shadow Display Quad (the “display quad preview” in code: _displayQuadPreview) is the quad used to preview the baked shadow in the editor.

• It is optional and used only in Shadow Capture Studio after a bake.

• After baking, the studio updates this quad’s material to show the new baked sprite and syncs its X and Y position and scale from the Shadow Catcher Quad; Z is left as you set it so you can place the display quad slightly in front of the shadow catcher for visibility.

• In the Create New Level workflow, you are instructed to place the Shadow Catcher Quad’s Z at the picture frame, then place the Captured Shadow Display Quad slightly in front of it. After baking, only the display quad’s X/Y and scale are updated from the shadow catcher.

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Context Menu: Center Shadow Catcher Quad

Center Shadow Catcher Quad is a context-menu action on the ShadowCaptureStudio component (right-click the component header → Center Shadow Catcher Quad). It automates placement and sizing of the Shadow Catcher Quad so it frames the interactable’s projected shadow on the quad plane.

What it does:

1. Uses the Shadow Light to get the shadow direction (-light.transform.forward).

2. Takes the interactable object’s mesh renderer bounds.

3. Projects the eight corners of that bounding box along the light direction onto the Shadow Catcher Quad’s plane.

4. Computes the 2D extent of those projected points in the quad’s local X/Y.

5. Moves the quad so its center matches the center of that extent, and sets the quad’s uniform scale so it fully contains the projected shadow with 10% padding (minimum 0.01 units), ceiled to a whole number.

Requirements:

• Shadow Catcher Quad and Interactable Object For Capture must be assigned.

• Shadow Light must be assigned; it is used to project shadow bounds onto the quad plane. If the light is missing, the command returns early (and optionally logs a warning).

When to use it: Run Center Shadow Catcher Quad after placing the quad in the right plane (e.g. at the frame) and assigning the light and interactable. Ex. you might need to run this function if your silhouette is outside of the given bounding box. In that case, you can just run this function and then rebake. Eg. You place your silhouette at the bottom right corner of the frame and notice that for some reason it looks cut off. You confirm it is cut off by inspecting the bounds of the Quad and notice that some of the silhouette is outside of it. Run this context menu function, follow the steps to rebake, and you'll get it fixed up.