forge-cascaded-shadow-maps

To implement cascaded shadow maps in an SDL GPU application, you split the view frustum into cascades, compute per-cascade light-space transforms, render depth-only shadow passes, and sample shadows using a 3x3 PCF kernel in the scene pass.

Shadow acne in directional light shadow maps occurs when depth precision is insufficient. You can prevent shadow acne by applying proper depth bias and configuring your shadow sampler with clamp-to-edge addressing during the depth-only shadow passes.

Cascaded shadow maps address shadow detail loss and aliasing in large environments by splitting the view frustum into multiple cascades, sampling each with a 3x3 PCF kernel to provide stable, high-resolution directional light shadows.

Yes, rendering cascaded shadow maps requires depth textures for the depth-only shadow passes and a sampler configured for clamp-to-edge to properly handle shadow map texturing and sampling during the scene pass.

Per-cascade split-depth calculation partitions the view frustum into segments, allowing each cascade to render a depth-only shadow pass with an orthographic projection, ensuring high-resolution shadow detail is maintained across the scene.