Uploaded May 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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In this video we take a look at some work arounds to producing a Shadow Catcher or Shadow Pass in Unreal Engine 5 using Materials and Post Processing. This would be most often be used to control shadows during Compositing for Animated Shorts/Film Making or Cinematics that you may be producing in Unreal.

Update (5.4+ Fix)
5:25 - This Render In Main Pass Toggle May also turn off the shadow in later versions of Unreal (5.4+), not sure if this is intended by Epic Games. But a work around for this would just be to Make and apply a Material with a Black (Constant 0) set for the Emissive Connection in the Material. And that should make the object Black but still cast shadow (White) giving a useable mask with the object held out.

Learn how to utilize this Material to Automate the Shadow Pass Rendering in Unreal Engine 5.4's Render Graph Here:
youtu.be/esvjSokOhWg

Patreon:
patreon.com/renderBucket

Discord:
discord.gg/BxsersBPQc

Tags:
Unreal Engine Tutorials, Shadow Pass in Unreal Engine, Unreal Engine Shadow Catcher Tutorial, Unreal Engine Compositing, Unreal Engine Post Processing, Unreal Engine GBuffer, Deferred Rendering, Shadow Pass in Unreal, Shadow Mask in Unreal, Masking Shadows in Unreal, Extract Shadows in Unreal, Shadow Alpha in Unreal, Shadow Rendering Unreal