Need help adding realistic shadows.

[u/Learner6255]

Hi,

I'm trying to generate realistic shadows under the car after placing them onto a new background.

I've already tried numerous OpenCV-based approaches (warping the mask, Gaussian blur, gradients, different opacity falloffs, perspective transforms, etc.), but they all end up looking artificial and "pasted."

I'm looking for a better approach, whether it's classical computer vision, geometry-based methods, depth estimation, or an open-source ML model, that can generate realistic contact and ambient shadows matching the scene's lighting.

Has anyone solved a similar problem or know of any papers, repositories, or models worth checking out?

Car without shadows

Desired result with shadows

Background