(DX12 Shadow Mapping) Depth buffer is always filled with 1

I'm really new to graphics programming in general, so please bear with me. I am trying to add shadow mapping from a distant light (orthogonal projection) into my scene, but when I follow the (very incomplete) steps from Frank Luna's DX12 book I find that my SRV for the shadow map is just filled with depths of 1.

If it helps, here is my SRV definition:

D3D12_TEX2D_SRV texDesc = {
        0,
        -1,
        0,
        0.0f
    };
    D3D12_SHADER_RESOURCE_VIEW_DESC srvDesc = {
        DXGI_FORMAT_R32_TYPELESS,
        D3D12_SRV_DIMENSION_TEXTURE2D,
        D3D12_DEFAULT_SHADER_4_COMPONENT_MAPPING,
    };
    srvDesc.Texture2D = texDesc;

    m_device->CreateShaderResourceView(m_lightDepthTexture.Get(),&srvDesc, m_cbvHeap->GetCPUDescriptorHandleForHeapStart());

and here are my DSV heap and descriptor definitions:

D3D12_DESCRIPTOR_HEAP_DESC dsvHeapDesc = {};
    dsvHeapDesc.NumDescriptors = 2;
    dsvHeapDesc.Type = D3D12_DESCRIPTOR_HEAP_TYPE_DSV;
    dsvHeapDesc.Flags = D3D12_DESCRIPTOR_HEAP_FLAG_NONE;
    ThrowIfFailed(m_device->CreateDescriptorHeap(&dsvHeapDesc, IID_PPV_ARGS(&m_dsvHeap)));

    D3D12_DEPTH_STENCIL_VIEW_DESC depthStencilDesc = {};
    depthStencilDesc.Format = DXGI_FORMAT_D32_FLOAT;
    depthStencilDesc.ViewDimension = D3D12_DSV_DIMENSION_TEXTURE2D;
    depthStencilDesc.Flags = D3D12_DSV_FLAG_NONE;

    CD3DX12_HEAP_PROPERTIES heapProps = CD3DX12_HEAP_PROPERTIES(D3D12_HEAP_TYPE_DEFAULT);
    CD3DX12_RESOURCE_DESC resourceDesc = CD3DX12_RESOURCE_DESC::Tex2D(DXGI_FORMAT_R32_TYPELESS, m_width, m_height, 1, 0, 1, 0, D3D12_RESOURCE_FLAG_ALLOW_DEPTH_STENCIL);

    D3D12_CLEAR_VALUE depthOptimizedClearValue = {};
    depthOptimizedClearValue.Format = DXGI_FORMAT_D32_FLOAT;
    depthOptimizedClearValue.DepthStencil.Depth = 1.0f;
    depthOptimizedClearValue.DepthStencil.Stencil = 0;

    ThrowIfFailed(m_device->CreateCommittedResource(
        &heapProps,
        D3D12_HEAP_FLAG_NONE,
        &resourceDesc,
        D3D12_RESOURCE_STATE_DEPTH_WRITE,
        &depthOptimizedClearValue,
        IID_PPV_ARGS(&m_dsvBuffer)
    ));

    D3D12_RESOURCE_DESC texDesc;
    ZeroMemory(&texDesc, sizeof(D3D12_RESOURCE_DESC));
    texDesc.Dimension = D3D12_RESOURCE_DIMENSION_TEXTURE2D;
    texDesc.Alignment = 0;
    texDesc.Width = m_width;
    texDesc.Height = m_height;
    texDesc.DepthOrArraySize = 1;
    texDesc.MipLevels = 1;
    texDesc.Format = DXGI_FORMAT_R32_TYPELESS;
    texDesc.SampleDesc.Count = 1;
    texDesc.SampleDesc.Quality = 0;
    texDesc.Layout = D3D12_TEXTURE_LAYOUT_UNKNOWN;
    texDesc.Flags = D3D12_RESOURCE_FLAG_ALLOW_DEPTH_STENCIL;

    ThrowIfFailed(m_device->CreateCommittedResource(
        &heapProps,
        D3D12_HEAP_FLAG_NONE,
        &texDesc,
        D3D12_RESOURCE_STATE_GENERIC_READ,
        &depthOptimizedClearValue,
        IID_PPV_ARGS(&m_lightDepthTexture)
    ));


    CD3DX12_CPU_DESCRIPTOR_HANDLE dsv(m_dsvHeap->GetCPUDescriptorHandleForHeapStart());
    m_device->CreateDepthStencilView(m_dsvBuffer.Get(), &depthStencilDesc, dsv);
    dsv.Offset(1, m_device->GetDescriptorHandleIncrementSize(D3D12_DESCRIPTOR_HEAP_TYPE_DSV));

    m_device->CreateDepthStencilView(m_lightDepthTexture.Get(), &depthStencilDesc, dsv);

I then created a basic vertex shader that just transforms the vertices with my map (from Frank Luna's book, page 648,650). Since I bound the m_lightDepthTexture to D3D12GraphicsCommandList::OMSetRenderTargets, I assumed that the depth values would be written onto m_lightDepthTexture. But simply sampling this texture in my main pass proves that the values are actually 1.0f. So nothing actually happened on my shadow pass!

I really have no idea what to ask, but if anyone has a sample DX12 shadow map I could see (Google comes up with DX11 or less, or much too complicated samples), or if there's a good source to learn about this, please let me know!

EDIT: I should say that I changed the format from DXGI_FORMAT_D24_UNORM_S8_UINT, as I think the extra 8 bits for stencil is irrelevant to my case. I changed back to the book format and nothing changed, so I think this format should be fine.

If you remove the unecessary return ret; from your shadow vertex shader, the problem then seems to be in winding order of vertices of your sphere. You can easily verify this by setting cull mode to D3D12_CULL_MODE_NONE for your shadow PSO.

You can easily correct your sphere winding order by switching order of any two vertices of every triangle, so wherever you have p1,p2,p3 you just write it for example as p1,p3,p2.

You will also need to check your matrix multiplication order in your vertex shaders, I didn't checked it in detail but it's inconsistent and I believe the cause why the sphere will appear black when you fix the above issue. You also seem to be missing division by w for your light coords in lighting vertex shader.