Baked static shadows
Find these controls under Features > Shadows > Baked Static Shadows. They belong to the level. The baked shadow data describes static geometry's shadows and can be used by movable receivers, including receivers with Cast Shadow disabled.
Baked data must be rebuilt when the static geometry or captured lighting changes. Runtime filter controls do not regenerate that data.
Use Baked Static Shadows
Default: enabled.
Enables using and baking Spectral's static shadow data for this lighting context. Turning it off also instructs the next successful bake to remove that Spectral shadow data. It does not erase native Unreal lighting data.
If you bake successfully with this disabled, the Spectral shadow data for the context is removed. Re-enable it and bake again when you need that data back.
Shadow Resolution
Default: 4096. Choices: 1024, 2048, 3072, 4096, 6144, 8192, Custom world detail. Requires a rebake.
The preset is a sampling density expressed as samples per 64 meters, not the dimensions of one texture covering the entire world.
| Preset | Approximate world spacing |
|---|---|
| 1024 | 6.25 cm |
| 2048 | 3.125 cm |
| 3072 | 2.083 cm |
| 4096 | 1.563 cm |
| 6144 | 1.042 cm |
| 8192 | 0.781 cm |
Higher resolution captures finer static-shadow detail but increases bake work and data size. Broadly increasing filtering afterward does not recover detail absent from these samples.
World Texel Size (cm)
Default custom value: 0.5 cm. Range: 0.1 to 10 cm. Used with Custom world detail. Requires a rebake.
Sets sample spacing directly. Smaller numbers mean denser data and more detail. This is the inverse of the preset number: increasing World Texel Size reduces detail.
The displayed custom value is not active while a numeric preset is selected.
Near Filter Samples
Default: 32. Range: 8 to 64. Live control.
Sampling count used to filter soft shadows near the camera. More samples can smooth the soft-shadow estimate but cost more GPU work. It does not change the resolution of the stored shadow field.
Far Filter Samples
Default: 16. Range: 8 to 64. Live control.
Sample count reached beyond LOD End Distance. A lower distant count can reduce cost where individual shadow details occupy fewer screen pixels. Extremely low counts can make broad soft shadows noisier.
LOD Start Distance (cm)
Default: 1000 cm. Range: 0 to 1,000,000 cm. Live control.
Camera distance where filtering begins transitioning from the near count toward the far count. 1000 cm is 10 meters. Before this region, the near count is used.
This is a filtering transition, not the point where all baked shadows disappear.
LOD End Distance (cm)
Default: 5000 cm. Range: 1 to 1,000,000 cm. Live control.
Distance where the far sample count is fully reached. Keep it beyond the start for a meaningful transition region. A wider interval spreads the change over more distance.
Contact Filter Radius (px)
Default: 0.5. Range: 0.5 to 2. Live control.
Minimum filtering width at contact edges. Increase it to soften visibly harsh or stepped contacts. Smaller values preserve a tighter contact but expose more of the stored sampling.
This is a filtering width, not a physical light size or a camera distance.
Smooth Bicubic Contacts
Default: disabled. Live control.
Smooths contact-shadow texels using four bilinear comparisons. It can make contact transitions less blocky at additional filtering cost.
Use it to improve reconstruction of existing data. If thin geometry never appeared in the bake, increasing reconstruction quality cannot add it.
Related settings
PCSS controls contact-hardening softness and whether static-source paths use it. The Native Preshadows (Fallback) controls only affect native fallback shadows, not receivers already covered by valid Spectral baked data.