How to make tree shadows with leaves alpha also shadowing?

Hey guys i saw a post on here from a while back showing someone how to make light hit an object that is translucent and still cast slight shadows. I followed the steps exactly and they work fine. This included —

Material: Blend Mode : Translucent
Two-Sided: True
Lighting Mode: Surface Translucency Volume

Then for the mesh placed in the level select it. In it’s Details Panel make sure that Volumetric Translucent Shadow is set to True.

His image then showed a cube with no shadows and a cube with different faded shadows around it much like my tree below.

The tree on the right has the lighting built, whereas the one on the left is a dupilcate without the lighting built. I need the trees in the level to look like the tree on the left but once i build lighting it completely disappears like the one to the right! help! Thanks!

Another question while i’m on the subject, how can i make light rays come through the trees?

Instead of using the blend mode «Translucent» use the blend mode «Opacity Mask» and connect your alpha channel to the opacity mask input. Also I recommend you to merge your diffuse and alpha inside one texture (if you’r not using the alpha channel of course). This should resolve your issue.

Have a good day sir!

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hey i also tried this but it didn’t work, it has the same effect. all i need to happen is the lighting to stay the same as it is before it’s built, i just don’t understand why it works until it’s built. This is a before and after.

Then you can set the actor to not use static lighting via its details panel. Rebuild the lighting for any stationary/static lighting you have and it should look similar since the preview shadows before building for static is just using dynamic shadowing to give you an idea of what it would look like.

thanks for the reply Tim, had a look at this as soon as i saw this reply, the tick box is greyed out for me and i cannt tick this? why would this be? thanks!

I just want to say that you get this result when it’s build because your alpha (for the leave) look like a small white spot. Maybe if you let him more space on the UV it could work better.

Also you should take a look on this document

it will help you for the light rendering :slight_smile: