This control sets the apparent distance of the shadowed object from the background. Adjusting the position of the Shadow Offset crosshair in the views is the quickest way to create simple drop shadows.

Softness controls how blurry the shadow's edges appear. The further the background is from the object, the fuzzier it becomes.

Use this control to select the color of the shadow. The most realistic shadows are usually the ones that are not totally black and razor sharp.

This control sets the position of the light relative to the shadow-casting object. The Light Position is only taken into consideration when the Light Distance slider is NOT set to infinity (1.0).

This slider will vary the apparent distance of the light between infinity (1) and being at zero distance from the shadow-casting object. The advantage of setting the Light Distance is that the resulting shadow is more realistic-looking with the further parts of the shadow being longer than those that are closer.

This control is active when an image is connected to shadow's Depth Map input. The slider is used to control the amount that the depth map contributes to the Light Distance. Dark areas of a depth map make the shadow deeper. White areas bring it closer to the camera.

This menu is used to select which color channel of the image connected to the tools Z Map input will be used to create the shadows depth map. Selections exist for the RGB and A, Luminance and Z buffer channels.

The Output image can either contain the image with shadow applied or the shadow only.

Changing the setting in the output drop-down list controls which mode will be used. This method is useful when color correction, perspective or other effects need to be applied to the resulting shadow before it is merged back with the object.

For example, shadow alpha controls the shadow's degree of transparency.