# Render

The Render Component enables an entity to render a primitive shape or a render asset.

[Image: Render Component]

[Video](https://developer.playcanvas.com/video/editor-shadow-cascade-mask.mp4)

## Properties

| Property                 | Description |
|--------------------------|-------------|
| Type                     | The type of the graphical object to be rendered. Can be: Asset, Box, Capsule, Cone, Cylinder, Plane, Sphere. |
| Asset                    | Asset type only. The render asset to be rendered by this render component. Only a single render asset can be assigned to a render component. |
| Root Bone                | Asset type only (skinned meshes). The entity to be used as the root bone for any skinned meshes that are rendered by this component. |
| Cast Shadows             | If enabled, the mesh instances rendered by this component will cast shadows onto other mesh instances in the scene. |
| Shadow Cascades          | Selects which directional-light shadow cascades receive this render component. Extra cascades are ignored. Only shown when Cast Shadows is enabled. |
| Cast Lightmap Shadows    | If enabled, the mesh instances rendered by this component will cast shadows into lightmaps. |
| Receive Shadows          | If enabled, the mesh instances rendered by this component will receive shadows cast by other mesh instances in the scene. |
| Static                   | If the entity referencing this render component never moves, check this box as a hint to the engine to make certain optimizations. |
| Lightmapped              | If enabled, this component's mesh instances do not receive lighting from dynamic lights. Instead they receive lighting generated by lightmap-baking lights. |
| Lightmap Size Multiplier | A multiplier applied to the calculated lightmap size for this mesh. Increase for higher resolution lightmaps. Only shown when Lightmapped is enabled. |
| Custom AABB              | If enabled, allows specifying a custom axis-aligned bounding box for visibility culling instead of using the automatically calculated one. This is an optimization for skinned characters to avoid per-frame bounding box computations based on bone positions. |
| AABB Center              | The center position of the custom bounding box. Only shown when Custom AABB is enabled. |
| AABB Half Extents        | The half-extents (half width, height, depth) of the custom bounding box. Only shown when Custom AABB is enabled. |
| Batch Group              | The batch group that this component's mesh instances belong to. |
| Layers                   | The layers to render this component's mesh instances into. |
| Materials                | The material assets that will be used to render the mesh instances of this component. Each material corresponds to the respective mesh instance. |

The Shadow Cascades mask is a row of four boxes, one per cascade. It pairs with the **Cascades** and **Cascade Distribution** settings on a directional [Light Component](https://developer.playcanvas.com/user-manual/editor/scenes/components/light.md), which decide how many cascades exist and how they are spread through the camera's view.

[Video](https://developer.playcanvas.com/video/editor-shadow-cascades-launch.mp4)

## See Also

- [Render Assets](https://developer.playcanvas.com/user-manual/editor/assets/inspectors/render.md) - Learn about render assets
- [Light Component](https://developer.playcanvas.com/user-manual/editor/scenes/components/light.md) - Configures the directional light cascades the mask selects from

## Scripting Interface

You can control a Render Component's properties using a [Script Component](https://developer.playcanvas.com/user-manual/editor/scenes/components/script.md). The Render Component's scripting interface is [here](https://api.playcanvas.com/engine/classes/RenderComponent.html).