Skip to main content

Shadows

Gaussian Splats can cast shadows onto meshes and other surfaces in your scene.

View Live Example - See splat shadows in action.

Splat Shadows

Enabling Shadow Casting​

To enable shadow casting on a GSplat component, set the castShadows property:

entity.gsplat.castShadows = true;

Or when creating the component:

entity.addComponent('gsplat', {
    asset: splatAsset,
    castShadows: true
});

You'll also need a light with shadow casting enabled:

entity.light.castShadows = true;

Shadow Quality​

For better shadow quality, you can adjust the alpha clip threshold. This controls how transparent splats contribute to shadows — lower values include more semi-transparent splats in the shadow, while higher values create sharper but potentially incomplete shadows.

Unified Mode​

In unified rendering mode, set the alpha clip threshold on the global GSplat settings:

app.scene.gsplat.alphaClip = 0.4;

Non-Unified Mode​

In non-unified mode, set the alpha clip threshold directly on the component's material:

entity.gsplat.material.setParameter('alphaClip', 0.4);

Receiving Shadows​

Splats cannot directly receive shadows from other objects. However, you can work around this limitation by using a shadow catcher - an invisible mesh that approximates the splat's shape and writes to the depth buffer to receive shadows.

See 3DGS with Physics and Relighting for an example of this technique in action.