Systems and methods for generating shadows for inserted content are provided. The inserted content may include augmented reality content that is inserted into an image of a physical space. An example method may include determining a location within an image to insert content. For example, the content may include skeletal joints from a skeletal animation system. The example method may further include generating a bounding box on a surface plane based on the skeletal joints and determining a shadow center point location on the surface plane based on the skeletal joints. For example, the surface plane may be identified based on the image. The example method may also include generating a shadow entity on the surface plane based on the bounding box and the shadow center point location and rendering the shadow entity using pixel values determined at least in part based on the shadow center point location.