Shadow Sphere

Overview

A spawnable Studio item that drops a soft, volumetric shadow into your scene, shaped entirely through MaterialEditor. It reads scene depth rather than casting a real light shadow, so you can place darkness exactly where you want it, under a character, in a corner, along the floor, and dial in its shape, softness, gradient, fade and noise. It ships as two zipmods: the item you spawn and the shader that drives it.

Features

• Shadow coreColor, intensity, density, falloff, core radius, max shadow and edge softness shape the darkness itself.
• Free-form shapeIndependent X / Y / Z scale and offset stretch the sphere into an ellipsoid and move it off center.
• Radius outlineAn optional colored rim traces the shadow edge, with its own opacity and falloff power.
• Vertical gradientFade the shadow strength along its height for a grounded, softer top.
• Distance fadeFade the whole shadow out between a start and end distance from the camera.
• Animated noiseBreak up the shape with scrolling fractal noise, with scale, strength, speed, contrast and octave controls.

Requirements

• MaterialEditor (deathweasel). The shape, softness, gradient, fade and noise controls are all MaterialEditor sliders on the item.
• Both Shadow Sphere zipmods. The item and its shader ship separately; install both in your mods folder.

Tips

• Spawn it from Add → Item → Zolteq → Shadow Sphere.
• It is depth-based and volumetric, so it darkens what is behind it in screen space rather than casting a lit shadow. Move and scale it to place the darkness.