Use this command to turn on or off the effect of casting shadows from other models onto this model.
Calculating accurate shadows in a 3D world is very time consuming, so the Renderer uses a variety of tricks to obtain an approximation of shadows.
Because Ground type objects are always flat, accurate shadows are easy to calculate and therefore a ground plane will always have near-perfect shadows cast onto it.
Casting shadows onto models is more difficult to accomplish. There are two approaches that can be used. The first is to use spotlights, and the second to use this option where a plane in the model is defined as a shadow plane and shadows are calculated from all other Objects on the assumption that this model is flat and lies in the shadow plane.
If the model is far from flat then this approximation does not work well. For floor, ceiling or wall surfaces where a ground plane is inappropriate, it works very well and is much quicker and memory efficient that Spotlights.
The shadow plane is defined by the position and orientation of the Base Texture Axis. See Also: Textures
More accurate shadows are obtained by using spotlights. These shadows are geometrically correct even for curved or irregular surfaces, but the accuracy of the shadow outline depends on the size of a Shadow buffer. If this buffer is too small the shadows will have fuzzy edges.