Hello Istarians!
I love the real shadows in Istaria but my biggest petpeeve is that the shadows they cast just don't look right on ancient and adult dragons. The models are chopped off halfway and you don't see everything. I realised just recently that in the .ent files you can adjust this! So, I created a fix. Hatchling dragons and half-giants are included because even if they don't get a cut off when standing, their shadows glitch out when jumping. Mobs are also included.
Also while making the real shadows a fix, I figured out that I could create a mod to do what I always wanted to see - your dragon's shadow far on the ground below you as you fly! There are some oddities since the terrain isn't fully considered when shadows are rendered, so you may get weird 'mirror tunnel' effects. (Seeing your shadow 2+ times without anything cut off) Foggy environments will still display your shadow very clearly on the ground even if you can't see the ground. Also if you stand on tall terrain you will see your shadow randomly far below, as if youre standing on glass. Of course, things like this are to be expected really. Istaria's an old game.
Fix
Far Shadow Rendering
Please note that Istaria likes to crash when you have the shadows on in general. Using the distance shadows or the fix may cause you to crash more!
Also, sorry for the FPS lag on the 2nd video. Whenever I go somewhere somewhat new Istaria likes to drop my FPS from 60 to 20 and then back. Also note both these videos were taken with the Original Ancient Mod active, meaning that the dragons appear larger than they normally would.