How to receive shadows on animated object In optimize way?

Question

I've been trying to add shadow to my flag that animated In my vertex shader but after adding shadow , my shadow is fixed and does not follow the animation of the flag.

for adding shadow I use below link:

Diffuse has a fallback of vertex lit, which contains within it two passes; Shadow Caster and Shadow Receiver. These are the two passes that allow the shader to cast and receive shadows. http://polycount.com/discussion/131260/how-to-get-custom-shaders-to-recieve-shadows

my shader is here:

Shader "Custom/Flag" {
    Properties {
        _MainTex ("Albedo (RGB)", 2D) = "white" {}
        _Speed ("Speed", Range(0, 5.0)) = 1
        _Frequency ("Frequency", Range(0, 1.3)) = 1
        _Amplitude ("Amplitude", Range(0, 5.0)) = 1
    }
    SubShader {
        Tags { "RenderType"="Opaque" "LightMode"="ForwardBase"  }
        Cull off

        Pass {

            CGPROGRAM
            #pragma vertex vert
            #pragma fragment frag
            #pragma multi_compile_fwdbase 

            #include "UnityCG.cginc"
            #include "AutoLight.cginc"

            sampler2D _MainTex;
            float4 _MainTex_ST;

            struct v2f {
                float4 pos : SV_POSITION;
                float2 uv : TEXCOORD0;
                LIGHTING_COORDS(1, 2)
            };

            float _Speed;
            float _Frequency;
            float _Amplitude;

            v2f vert(appdata_base v)
            {
                v2f o;
                v.vertex.y +=  cos((v.vertex.x + _Time.y * _Speed) * _Frequency) * _Amplitude * (v.vertex.x - 5);
                o.pos = UnityObjectToClipPos(v.vertex);
                o.uv = TRANSFORM_TEX(v.texcoord, _MainTex);
                TRANSFER_VERTEX_TO_FRAGMENT(o);
                return o;
            }

            fixed4 frag(v2f i) : SV_Target
            {
                return tex2D(_MainTex, i.uv);
            }

            ENDCG

        }
    }
    FallBack "VertexLit"
}

Finally I use "LightMode"="ShadowCaster" but this Tag prevents rendering my flag like this problem.A solution came to my mind that works correctly "using two pass for implementing shadows: 1.normal pass 2.ShadowCaster pass" but I think It's not optimize.

this is my solution as Pseudo Code:

   SubShader {
        Tags { "RenderType"="Opaque" }
        Cull off
        Pass {
            CGPROGRAM
            Shader "Custom/Flag" // normal Pass for animating flag
            ENDCG
        }

        Pass {
            Tags { "LightMode"="ShadowCaster" }

            CGPROGRAM
            Shader "Custom/Flag" //ShadowCaster Pass for recieving shadow
            ENDCG
        }
    }
    FallBack "VertexLit"
}

Flag shader.unitypackage

In short I finding a way for adding shadows for vertex animated objects In optimized way.

Answer 1

The 2 pass system is the only way. It's how the engine handles shadows.

Here's an example of a shadow pass from unity's manual. You'd need to modify the shadow pass' vertex shader.

    // shadow caster rendering pass, implemented manually
    // using macros from UnityCG.cginc
    Pass
    {
        Tags {"LightMode"="ShadowCaster"}

        CGPROGRAM
        #pragma vertex vert
        #pragma fragment frag
        #pragma multi_compile_shadowcaster
        #include "UnityCG.cginc"

        struct v2f { 
            V2F_SHADOW_CASTER;
        };

        v2f vert(appdata_base v)
        {
            v2f o;
            TRANSFER_SHADOW_CASTER_NORMALOFFSET(o)
            return o;
        }

        float4 frag(v2f i) : SV_Target
        {
            SHADOW_CASTER_FRAGMENT(i)
        }
        ENDCG
    }