shadow alpha fade

[Naggar]

hi guys..
i've been having this issue for a few years now and its not easy to make a workaround for it.

whenever I have any object in a 3D environment with directional light + shadows, The shadow makes a hard transition when fading out the image on Alpha 1% to 0%. So basically whenever the object is nearly fully faded out, the shadow is still fully visible, as soon as it hits 0% alpha it disappears, which looks very awkward..
Could this be fixed so that the shadow fades smoothly with the object?

thanks