Best way to darken shadows near contact points?

[Dillon_Baker]

Hi all! Still pretty new here. I’m tinkering with contact shadows, and although the blurring with distance is neat, I’m looking to adjust the darkening with distance.

Here’s a comparison of my playground on the left, and the visuals I’m trying to replicate on the right:

Notice the darker shadows underneath the legs on the right - I’ve replicated the general diffused shadow pretty well, but what I’m missing is the darker tones near the floor contact points that really solidify the item. Mine looks pretty floaty in comparison. I can’t find a way to do this with contact shadows in a way that blends neatly into the super diffused, lighter shadow.

What would y’all recommend to replicate this look? Should it be a second shadow on top of this, or is there a setting I can use to replicate this in a single shadow generator? Thanks so much for any help!

[Evgeni_Popov]

You can try to use the SSAO2 rendering pipeline:

Babylon.js Playground

Use the inspector to change the parameters of SSAO interactively and see if you are able to get the visual results you want:

[Evgeni_Popov]

I have just noticed you used a ShadowOnlyMaterial for the ground. It would be better to use a PBRMaterial because SSAO does not work with the ShadowOnlyMaterial:

Babylon.js Playground

That way you can get dark spots under the foots of the armchair.

[mawa]

Agreed, as per my experience. Using a directionalLight with contact hardening shadows and a nicely set min and max casting on a PBR material (or actually even a standard material) can make nice dark shadows at the contact point. Just make sure the emissive of the receiver is as dark as possible.