Disabling PCF shadows (with scene optimizer) makes objects go invisible

Bugs
,
1

Hello,

Here’s repro code (can’t save to playground, error 500).
The floor will disappear after 2s when the optimizer disables shadows (same effect with scene.disableShadows = true)
Without PCF the floor will still be there but small dark spots from the shadow are still visible
Switching ground.receiveShadows back & forth in the inspector will have the situation go back to normal

var createScene = function (engine) {
    const  scene = new BABYLON.Scene(engine);

    const camera = new BABYLON.ArcRotateCamera("Camera", -3 * Math.PI / 4, Math.PI / 3, 50, BABYLON.Vector3.Zero(), scene);
    camera.attachControl(canvas, true);
    
    const  light = new BABYLON.DirectionalLight("dir01", new BABYLON.Vector3(0, -1, 1), scene);
    light.position = new BABYLON.Vector3(0, 15, -30);

    var ground = BABYLON.Mesh.CreateGround("ground", 100, 100, 1, scene, false);
    ground.receiveShadows = true;

    // Shadow generator
    const shadowGenerator = new BABYLON.ShadowGenerator(1024, light);
    shadowGenerator.usePercentageCloserFiltering = true;


    BABYLON.SceneLoader.ImportMesh("him", "/scenes/Dude/", "Dude.babylon", scene, function (newMeshes2, particleSystems2, skeletons2) {
        var dude = newMeshes2[0];
        dude.scaling = new BABYLON.Vector3(0.2, 0.2, 0.2);
            
        //add dude, true means add children as well
        shadowGenerator.addShadowCaster(dude, true);
                
        scene.beginAnimation(skeletons2[0], 0, 100, true);

        var options = new BABYLON.SceneOptimizerOptions(70, 2000);
        options.addOptimization(new BABYLON.ShadowsOptimization(0));
        var optimizer = new BABYLON.SceneOptimizer(scene, options);
        optimizer.onNewOptimizationAppliedObservable.add(function (optim) {
            console.log(optim.getDescription());
        });        
        optimizer.start();

    });

    return scene;
};
3

We are currently working on a better fix, but as a workaround you can simply create a standard material and apply it to the ground (the bug is related to the fact that the ground uses the default material):

5

I have the same issue with my real scene which is a .glb import

With this error
[.WebGL-000069F00456A300] GL_INVALID_OPERATION: Mismatch between texture format and sampler type (signed/unsigned/float/shadow).

6

It looks related to the fact that scene.shadowsEnabled=false (called in the optimizer) does not mark meshes as light dirty, like for instance changing Light.shadowEnabled does :


 public _markMeshesAsLightDirty() {
        for (const mesh of this.getScene().meshes) {
            if (mesh.lightSources.indexOf(this) !== -1) {
                mesh._markSubMeshesAsLightDirty();
            }
        }
    }

Adding this to my original code will make it work:

7

It’s another workaround to make it work, but we do have a problem with the existing code which should work, and we will see to fix it asap.