Nope, the TLDR; is that once working correctly, EEVEE-Next shadow resolution should be at least twice as good as the max resolution in EEVEE-Legacy.
Why would we work on a more complex system that yields worse results?
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How do I extrapolate Eevee to Next, in terms of what value to use for the pool size?
In Eevee, I use a cube & cascade size of 4K, which produces the cleanest hard edge. In Next, Iāve tried a pool size of 1GB (which artifacts terribly, but I believe a patch in the past day or two was meant to resolve it) which doesnāt give me the same level of quality as the 4K in eevee.
In other words, the old system gave me a value of pixel dimensions, and the new one is the VRAM. Whatās the conversion factor?
Why would we work on a more complex system that yields worse results?
My fear - which is believe is quite justified, based on the feedback (or lack of) on the goal - is the impression that the Next shadows are in the stack of āsorry, this is how itās going to be.ā
I see a LOT of coding being done on light probes and bouncing and other manner of global illumination improvements. What Iāve not read is a lot of concern and focus on shadow quality. When I read āit uses VSMā - ok, fine - but they donāt look good. The user doesnāt quite care about MIP vs SAT; thatās just technical background. Important overall, but just knowing the method being used doesnāt quell fear and wonder. We donāt quite know what the true goal is, and what to expect.
So I donāt know if Iām suppose to eval the situation as āthis is the best that VSM can do, so prepare to live with itā, or āThis quality is going to blow my mind, just wait for it.ā Iām hoping for the latter.
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I have no idea, but the results are visibly worse, there are multiple comparison screenshots a few replies above. Itās good to hear that this will be fixed eventually 
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Thereās no āconversion factorā. The EEVEE Next implementation always goes for the best resolution required (up to 8k), and when it runs out of memory in the shadow-map pool it will show a message complaining that it doesnāt have enough memory, and some shadow tiles will be missing.
In the future, we might scale-back the resolution or something like that if the pool runs out of memory, but thatās not the case at the moment.
So, right now, the shadow quality should be the same regardless of the pool size.
It isnāt, though. Again, you can easily verify this with the comparison screenshots above
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Exactly, itās not even close. At any pool size.
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I mean it should be the same between pool sizes.
Shadows in EEVEE-Next with a 1GB pool should look same as a 512MB pool,
unless the pool is not big enough, in wich case youāll see a warning message.
They āshouldā, but they donāt. Look at the images
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Ah, ok. Now I understand what you meant; i thought you were comparing eevee and next, not next 512 and next 1G.
Iāve been testing where the shadows specifically look worse the past few days, because I have rarely seen worse results.
From my testing, results are always improved with Sun Lights, while Point, Spot and Area lights vary. I noticed that the shadow resolution is based on camera distance, so the results are usually dependent on how close the shadows are.
And Iām not sure if this is a bug or intentional, but setting Shadow Softness to 1.0 drastically reduces the shadow resolution, even if the Radius is set to 0.0 (seems to go from 8096px to 2048px when compared with Legacy). This isnāt the case with Sun Lights though.
I think the issue that everyone here is running into might be that the resolution decrease seems to be too aggressive, getting very noticeable at more or less 10m.
The same scene in Legacy EEVEE also has stepping in the same areas, but itās far less noticeable due to constant resolution.
I am not sure how fixable this is with how VSM works, but in conclusion the specific thing where Legacy produces better results is shadow at a higher distance.
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@etti Indeed seems that youāre correct on your 10m observation. Feels itās indeed what is catching the attention.
Shadow clip start question:
One thing I do often in Eevee-legacy is adjust the clip start for a lamp shadow, so that I can have for example a lamp inside a geometry lamp and it doesnāt cast shadows. The clip start is gone forever!?
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Yes, it was a known bug. Iāve committed the fix today: #118860 - EEVEE-Next: Avoid shadowmap padding on 0 radius punctual lights - blender - Blender Projects
Iāve also committed other changes that should help with shadow quality.
Projective aliasing is still not fixed, though, which I think is the main problem in your second example images.
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Thereās been no followup comment on the new method of calculating soft shadows and what the consensus is on continuing the legacy style of offsetting the shadows to converge on a soft result?
The new method is much better at providing immediate results while legacy had to converge over time but was much more accurate and capable (I assume that isnāt controversial?).
Many other elements of eevee next rely even more heavily on converging over time than legacy ever did, especially in regards to screenspace effects, so it seems like an odd decision to go the other direction with shadows.
My main concern is that there are too many tradeoffs with too few options that may force users into situations where certain scenes will look better or even rely on eevee legacy tech that will be dropped.
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Miguel,
Have just been testing with the latest 3-6-24 build; the latest tweaks have made a significant improvement.
The forum image conversion is adding some color artifacting that doesnāt actually exist in the render, so ignore that. The shadow edgings are much cleaner than Iāve been getting.
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Has this one been added yet? Iāve not been able to find, but perhaps Iām just overlooking it in the UI.
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Overhaul Eevee-Next is giving much better quality rendersā¦ at this exact moment the only things stoping me of using in a creative is:
- motion blur
- Volumes (mist) clipping
Lighting and transparency wise Iām having great results on the COLP characters that also have the shader to RGB node :
Exact same file, no additional color correction.
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Yes, this is meant to be added back, although with a per-light setting instead of a global one.
The plan is doing something similar to the DoF Over-Blur setting, so we can get the best of both worlds.
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That sounds perfect. Along with either a resolution multiplier or automatic system to prevent exceeding pool size like you mentioned earlier, and I canāt think of any situation where shadows would be worse off than before.
Thanks for the info.
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Iām getting some pretty weird shadowing cut off with Area lights in EEVEE Next.
If I have an Area light above, not touching or intersecting with the ceiling, I get a line artifact along the wall. Itās very noticeable with a light line with the lightās shadows set to soft, and has a solid cut off line when set to hard shadows.
Funny thing is, if I lower the light by half a meter the line then raises to meet the edge of the light. Itās almost as if invisible barn doors are pinned in space half a meter below the light at 45 deg. and lowering the light opens the barn doors to full.
Thanks!
EEVEE Next Hard Shadows:
EEVEE Next Soft Shadows:
EEVEE Next Lowered Light:
Normal EEVEE for reference:
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Just attempt to render an animation today on Eevee-next and no diceā¦ still random shadows from frame to frameā¦ itās a real shame because the quality bump is really huge.
ā¦and that even without adding any probe.
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