3D Design•6 min read•Sep 05, 2026
Realistic Contact Shadows: Grounding 3D Products on Digital Pedestals
How to use blurred contact shadow planes and ambient occlusion to eliminate floating product artifacts without costly dynamic shadow maps.
ER
Elena RostovaPrincipal 3D Material Specialist
#Shadows#Pedestal#Three.js#ContactShadows
A common flaw in web 3D viewports is the 'floating object syndrome'—products appear suspended in empty space with no spatial relationship to their ground plane. Contact shadows anchor the object firmly in physical reality.
1. The Power of ContactShadows from Drei
Rather than calculating expensive real-time cascaded shadow maps from multiple directional lights, @react-three/drei's ContactShadows renders an orthographic depth map looking up from the ground plane.
This creates soft, natural ambient occlusion directly beneath soles, heel counters, and pedestals with minimal GPU overhead.
Summary & Key Takeaway
Proper grounding transforms abstract geometry into tangible, physical merchandise.
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