VertShade

Stop wasting texture memory and draw calls on complex lightmaps. VertShade is a  Blender add-on that calculates raycasted occlusion, surface falloff, and ambient occlusion, then paints the result directly into your mesh's Color Attributes / Vertex Colors.

Get update check out our site Our Site

Key Features

• Direct Raycast Shadows: Cast crisp directional occlusion shadows from roofs, cliffs, overhangs, and props onto your geometry.
• Terminator Shading ($N \cdot L$): Smoothly darken backfaces facing away from the light source with customizable curve models:
  • Lambert (classic, sharp transition)
  • Half-Lambert (soft, anime/stylized wrap)
  • SmoothStep (punchy graphic contrast)
• Contact Ambient Occlusion (AO): Cast hemispherical rays around each vertex normal to darken crevices, joints, and ground-contact points.
• Flexible Light Targeting: Pick an existing Sun/Light object in your scene or dial in custom Azimuth and Elevation angles manually.
• Art-Friendly Blending:
  • Multiply: Darken existing hand-painted vertex colors without overwriting underlying artwork.
  • Replace: Freshly overwrite the active color attribute.
  • Darken Only: Keep whichever value is darker between current colors and the computed shadow.
• Custom Shadow Tint: Ditch flat black shadows—inject slate blues, deep purples, or warm ambient tones directly into your mesh.

Why Vertex Lighting?

Traditional Lightmaps	Vertex Shadow Painter
Requires clean UV unwrapping	Zero UV unwrapping required
Consumes texture VRAM	Zero additional texture memory
Prone to seam bleeding & resolution limits	Tied cleanly to mesh density
Adds extra texture draw calls / sampling	Runs entirely on unlit/vertex shaders

Quick Start Guide

1. Select your target mesh(es) in the 3D Viewport.
2. Press N to expand the sidebar and click the Vertex Shadow tab.
3. Choose your light source: pick an active Scene Light or adjust Manual Angles.
4. Enable your desired passes (Direct Shadow, Terminator, and/or Ambient Occlusion).
5. Set your blend mode, darkness, and tint.
6. Click Paint / Bake Vertex Shadows.

Previewing in the Viewport

• Set your Viewport Shading mode to Solid.
• Open the Viewport Shading dropdown (top-right corner arrow).
• Under Color, select Attribute (or Vertex).