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Body motion perception from impoverished stimuli, such as point-light motion, shows interesting multi-stability, which disappears in presence of shading cues that suggest depth. Existing models for body motion perception account neither for multi-stability nor for the specific influence of such shading cues. We propose a new model that captures these phenomena. METHOD: We extended a classical hierarchical recognition model for body motion by:(i) a two-dimensional dynamic neural field of snapshot, which reproduces decisions about walking direction and their multi-stability;(ii) a novel hierarchical pathway that processes specifically intrinsic luminance gradients, being invariant against the strong contrast edges on the boundary of the body. RESULTS: We show that the model reproduces the observed multi-stability of perception for unshaded walker silhouettes. The addition of intrinsic shading cues results in monostable unambiguous perception in the model,