# Gaussian Shadow Casting for Neural Characters

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.06116 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.06116/

## Key facts

- Cited by 14 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 35 of its 55 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Jan 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 35)

- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [On the Continuity of Rotation Representations in Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.07035/) (2018)
- [Volume Rendering of Neural Implicit Surfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.12052/) (2021)
- [Implicit Geometric Regularization for Learning Shapes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.10099/) (2020)
- [Neural Body: Implicit Neural Representations with Structured Latent Codes for Novel View Synthesis of Dynamic Humans](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.15838/) (2020)
- [NeRV: Neural Reflectance and Visibility Fields for Relighting and View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.03927/) (2020)
- [NeRD: Neural Reflectance Decomposition from Image Collections](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.03918/) (2020)
- [PhySG: Inverse Rendering with Spherical Gaussians for Physics-based Material Editing and Relighting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.00674/) (2021)
- [NeuMan: Neural Human Radiance Field from a Single Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.12575/) (2022)
- [A-NeRF: Articulated Neural Radiance Fields for Learning Human Shape, Appearance, and Pose](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.06199/) (2021)
- [Neural Articulated Radiance Field](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.03110/) (2021)
- [TAVA: Template-free Animatable Volumetric Actors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.08929/) (2022)
- [Learning to Reconstruct People in Clothing from a Single RGB Camera](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.05885/) (2019)
- [Neural Human Performer: Learning Generalizable Radiance Fields for Human Performance Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.07448/) (2021)
- [ARAH: Animatable Volume Rendering of Articulated Human SDFs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.10036/) (2022)
- [Structured Local Radiance Fields for Human Avatar Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.14478/) (2022)
- [NeRF for Outdoor Scene Relighting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.05140/) (2021)
- [Neural Fields meet Explicit Geometric Representation for Inverse Rendering of Urban Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03266/) (2023)
- [AvatarReX: Real-time Expressive Full-body Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.04789/) (2023)
- [Driving-Signal Aware Full-Body Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.10441/) (2021)
- [MonoPerfCap: Human Performance Capture from Monocular Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.02136/) (2017)
- [PoseVocab: Learning Joint-structured Pose Embeddings for Human Avatar Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.13006/) (2023)
- [Shadow Neural Radiance Fields for Multi-view Satellite Photogrammetry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.09877/) (2021)
- [TextureNet: Consistent Local Parametrizations for Learning from High-Resolution Signals on Meshes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.00020/) (2018)
- [A Versatile Scene Model with Differentiable Visibility Applied to Generative Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.03725/) (2016)
- [DANBO: Disentangled Articulated Neural Body Representations via Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.01666/) (2022)
- [Towards Practical Capture of High-Fidelity Relightable Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.04247/) (2023)
- [Motion Capture from Internet Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.07931/) (2020)
- [Relightable and Animatable Neural Avatar from Sparse-View Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.07903/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [3D Gaussian Splatting: Survey, Technologies, Challenges, and Opportunities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.17418/) (2024)
- [GaussianRoom: Improving 3D Gaussian Splatting with SDF Guidance and Monocular Cues for Indoor Scene Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.19671/) (2024)
- [DarkGS: Learning Neural Illumination and 3D Gaussians Relighting for Robotic Exploration in the Dark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.10814/) (2024)
- [Does 3D Gaussian Splatting Need Accurate Volumetric Rendering?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.19318/) (2025)
- [Surfel-based Gaussian Inverse Rendering for Fast and Relightable Dynamic Human Reconstruction from Monocular Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.15212/) (2024)
- [ScrewSplat: An End-to-End Method for Articulated Object Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.02146/) (2025)
- [Interactive Rendering of Relightable and Animatable Gaussian Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.10707/) (2024)
- [PhaSR: Generalized Image Shadow Removal with Physically Aligned Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.17470/) (2026)
- [SAGOnline: Segment Any Gaussians Online](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.08219/) (2025)
- [PointGauss: Point Cloud-Guided Multi-Object Segmentation for Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.00259/) (2025)
- [MOSS: Motion-based 3D Clothed Human Synthesis from Monocular Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.12806/) (2024)
- [Projecting Gaussian Ellipsoids While Avoiding Affine Projection Approximation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.07579/) (2024)
- [Animated 3DGS Avatars in Diverse Scenes with Consistent Lighting and Shadows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.01660/) (2026)
- [RAGA: Real Time Ray Traced Gaussian Shadow Casting for 3DGS Avatar-Scene Interaction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.29329/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Neural character models can now reconstruct detailed geometry and texture from video, but they lack explicit shadows and shading, leading to artifacts when generating novel views and poses or during relighting. It is particularly difficult to include shadows as they are a global effect and the required casting of secondary rays is costly. We propose a new shadow model using a Gaussian density proxy that replaces sampling with a simple analytic formula. It supports dynamic motion and is tailored for shadow computation, thereby avoiding the affine projection approximation and sorting required by the closely related Gaussian splatting. Combined with a deferred neural rendering model, our Gaussian shadows enable Lambertian shading and shadow casting with minimal overhead. We demonstrate improved reconstructions, with better separation of albedo, shading, and shadows in challenging outdoor scenes with direct sun light and hard shadows. Our method is able to optimize the light direction without any input from the user. As a result, novel poses have fewer shadow artifacts and relighting in novel scenes is more realistic compared to the state-of-the-art methods, providing new ways to pose neural characters in novel environments, increasing their applicability.