Shadows Are Broken In Studio AND In Game

[CDDevelopment]

UPDATE: As it turns out, the longer you’re in-game the less broken shadows seem to get. This might be due to how we unload/reload parts during run-time, but it’s note worthy.

Reproduction Steps

Not sure 100% how to recreate this bug, happens in-game on one of our maps here: Rolling Thunder - Roblox

It also happens in studio, it only seems to affect newly edited parts… parts that existed before this week and weren’t touched in studio are unaffected by this bug.

In our use-case we have parts with CastShadow enabled, and parts within the same model hierarchy with CastShadow off. Some of the parts casting shadow clip within parts that have CastShadow off, but that doesn’t seem to 100% create the issues we’re seeing.

Expected Behavior

I expect shadows to cast normally, or at least for parts that have “CastShadow” enabled to cast a shadow.

Actual Behavior

In-game alot of parts that have CastShadow enabled just don’t cast shadows at all, sometimes they do, but it depends on the viewing angle. Rejoining the game will result in completely different parts having the issues while others that did previously, might not. It seems entirely random which ones are affected and which ones aren’t.

In studio it’s also relatively random which parts are affected, you can see in this clip that normal baseparts with CastShadow on just aren’t casting shadows. Also very strangely, toggling CastShadow back off and then on again will make it cast a shadow, but adjusting the CastShadow property on unrelated parts nearby will cause it to stop casting shadows again.

https://img.guildedcdn.com/ContentMediaGenericFiles/c00e482741c758b93bd3269fd378da58-Full.mp4?w=1920&h=1080

Workaround

No workaround at this time, just don’t touch any models or parts you want to keep behaving like they used to.

Issue Area: Engine
Issue Type: Display
Impact: High
Frequency: Constantly
Date First Experienced: 2022-11-16 00:11:00 (-05:00)
Date Last Experienced: 2022-11-18 00:11:00 (-05:00)
A private message is associated with this bug report

[retributxon (retribution)]

I’ve been noticing the same thing, glad I’m not crazy.

[BlueyHeeler96 (Bluey Heeler)]

I was playing cart ride around nothing and noticed sunlight showing in the tunnel when it never has before. Made me think something was glitching out on my GPU.

[TheCrypticRunner (Cryptic)]

I’ve been noticing these kinds of light leaks happening everywhere too since a few days. It seems to fix itself when the transparency of the part which casts the broken shadow is changed for some reason.

[000Scripter (Leon)]

Same thing is happening here and whenever I turn off cast shadows and re enable them, they appear in studio, but if i run the game, they disappear again. Changing material service materials also seem to add back the shadows, and changing from future to shadow map, and then future again, re enables the shadows. This is super weird and is a bug that should be fixed as fast as possible cause building right now, is very annoying, and visual glitches like this should not appear in an engine when you are developing. Very annoying.

[DukeAunarky (Aunarky)]

I’m glad I’m not the only one experiencing this right now.
My demo game has been having some issues with shadows where it sometimes creates extremely odd artifacts

I’d like to clarify this did NOT happen in previous versions of studio

New Studio (bug occuring):

Old Studio (artifacts arent appearing):

[TheCrypticRunner (Cryptic)]

To add to this, small parts now cast extremely glitchy shadows that are larger than themselves when I duplicate some of them. I managed to fix the issue by switching to Shadowmap then going back to Future lighting.

Seriously, what the hell is going on??? How do they screw up something like this?

[Hifiveghost5_YT (MAYHEM)]

I can confirm his is also a major problem that is happening to me in my game that uses a lot of auto generated areas and loaded parts.

[Beo_Goat (Beo)]

Only started experiencing this annoying issue yesterday. For me, it’s everything is impacted even if I had not touched said parts/meshes prior to whatever update caused this.

The weirdest part about this is that if I try to move something, then it’s shadow will appear, although some other’s won’t. Also, if you turn FIB on and off, then it’ll temporarily be fixed only in your studio. However, the issue remains if you reopen studio or go in-game.

[VGVC2]

Getting this as well, except shadows can be perfectly fine in studio, but completely messed up in-game.

[thirdtakeonit]

Thanks for the report! We’ll follow up when we have an update for you.

[JustAGameDeveloper1 (d5v)]

Same.

cast shadow wont cast a shadow-
roblox needs to fix this or im cancelling my weapon fighting game, CYBERPUNK.

[sonicwasonthisacc (WithoutATrace)]

I recently used group select to disable a lot of part shadows and some groups would not be affected, and I had to manually change the properties of each part.

Idk if this bug could be related to my bug, but it is strange.

[thirdtakeonit]

We’ve disabled the feature that was breaking shadows. Does the issue still persist?

[Awsium]

Issue seems to be fixed on my end!

[CorrivalRhyme]

On latest studio version, still messed up
Highest quality settings
Desktop

[Beo_Goat (Beo)]

I noticed it was fixed for me around the time you posted this comment.

[subsarius (frankensub)]

Yeah, they STILL haven’t fixed it. Even worse, near shadows don’t even render when on first person…

Edit: i think the shadows are broken due to how many shadows have to be rendered in-real time, my terrain-only map for example has 1,2 MILLION triangles… although i doubt that, since The Wild West by Starboard Studios has an amazing HUGE terrain map and yet they have no lighting bugs

[OmqFroko]

Not the only one, just opened my studio and this bug hapenned to me and its same as yours.

[Eeeceeholland (Ethan)]

All places I join in studio have the same problem. A circle forms under the camera where shadows don’t render, then all the shadows flicker on and off.