archived-shaders

[kind juniper]

Does the GPU generate the lod levels automatically?🤔

[regal stag]

It samples each mipmap level of the texture (lower resolution versions). I don't know how the gpu stores/connects them exactly but it's different from an array which requires each slice to be the same dimensions.
To sample an array you'd use
SAMPLE_TEXTURE2D_ARRAY(texture, sampler, uv2, slice) or
SAMPLE_TEXTURE2D_ARRAY_LOD(texture, sampler, uv2, slice, lod)

[kind juniper]

Ah, of course. Mip maps.

[meager pelican]

You're using time and a sine function, so that will return negatives. Try adding a saturate node before plugging it into the color. Just a thought.

[kind juniper]

I can't sample texture arrays in vertex stage though, can I?

[meager pelican]

Like Uri said. lol 😉

[regal stag]

Should be able to, though you'd need use the LOD version (to specify which mipmap is sampled). The regular one uses ddx/ddy to calculate a mipmap level which is only available in the fragment stage.

[mental bone]

SAMPLE_TEXTURE2D_ARRAY_LOD will work in the vert stage

[kind juniper]

Since the two legends have gathered here, do you mind having a look at the thread that I created yesterday?@regal stag @meager pelican

[meager pelican]

Good. But what I still don't understand is why it is so different between scene view and game view and the game view is the one that worked.

[mental bone]

oh guys btw if you remember my elipsoid vertex clip problem. Turns out position node returns post skinned positions that are in who knows what space so I had to bake the pre-skinned ones into a extra uv channel to get it to work

[regal stag]

I saw it yesterday but I have very limited knowledge on compute shaders, so no idea sorry

[kind juniper]

But it's not like I can set the mip map levels manually, right? And even if I could, they would have to be of different sizes.🤔

[meager pelican]

And I'm no legend, and not in Cyan's league, but if you give me a link to the thread I'll look for fun.

[regal stag]

You'd typically let unity take care of it. But if you're trying to generate mipmaps on a rendertexture filled from a compute shader I'm not too sure. Maybe you can read that back on the gpu, have it generate mipmaps, then send it back? 🤷

[kind juniper]

Thanks. Here's the link.

#archived-shaders message

[kind juniper]

The idea was to be able to use texture arrays to sample custom data per vertex index, but I guess I'll have to either use structured buffers or several textures.😅

Using a texture array would've been more convenient from several points though.😮‍💨

[regal stag]

Wait so why can't you use a texture array? 🤔

[kind juniper]

Because I need it sampled in the vertex stage and it doesn't seem to work.

I want to interpolate the sampled data

Using custom interpolators.

[regal stag]

It should work if you use SAMPLE_TEXTURE2D_ARRAY_LOD(texture, sampler, uv2, slice, lod)

[kind juniper]

Wow. Is there such a thing?😲

[regal stag]

Of course 🙂

[kind juniper]

I'll give it a try.

[mental bone]

yeah thats for sampling in the vert stage

but you have to provide mip level yourself

[meager pelican]

Wow. A bit out of my league too, but I'll give you some paths to track.

The graphics system includes a FENCE for deciding on when execution of a given routine has been completed for all processors. It's kind of a "Lets all wait here until EVERYONE is done". That exists on the individual core level, but there's also a level in the graphics pipeline itself.
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Rendering.GraphicsFence.html
(more in next post)

[kind juniper]

I knew about the Texture2D one, but didn't think there's one for an array.

[mental bone]

as far as I understand texture arrays they are nothing more that a old school texture atlas laid out sequentially in memory so in a way they are a Texture2D

[kind juniper]

But in general, when I call Dispatch in C# does it queue the shader to execute after all the previous dispatches? If I have several shaders that depend on each other's work, is it safe to just dispatch them in order?

[meager pelican]

IDK of any "common workflow" to keep the data serialized from a render texture. I mean, other than read-back and storing in a serialized object.

There's not even any guarantee that the GPU won't discard the whole thing during some massive OS operation and demand the texture gets reloaded again by the engine!

[kind juniper]

I seem that'd make sense.

[kind juniper]

I ended up copying the render texture to a texture2d when I want to save it. It seems like render texture doesn't store color data on the CPU.

At any point.

[meager pelican]

Ouch, not sure. In general they will be dispatched in order, but IDK if you can guarantee that they don't work in parallel. But use fences in that case. e.g. dispatch1, dispatch2 that checks fence1 before proceeding, dispatch3 that checks for fence2...

[meager pelican]

right, it doesn't. It's basically a buffer on the GPU.

[kind juniper]

I see. I'll have a look at the fences if I feel like something is being broken. 😄

[regal stag]

It seems like Unity might just handle it. The GraphicsFence docs mention

GPUFences do not need to be used to synchronise a GPU task writing to a resource that will be read as an input by another. These resource dependencies are automatically handled by Unity.

[kind juniper]

I've seen this HDRP docs page the other day, which made me think, that there's an execution order.
https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.render-pipelines.high-definition@6.9/manual/Post-Processing-Execution-Order.html

[kind juniper]

Nice. Didn't think Unity would handle that for me. But hoped that it does... 😄

[meager pelican]

Good point. Yeah, but if he's doing two updates in a row...fence.

[meager pelican]

That's a PP system that enforces its own execution order. So yeah, that thing has it.
But for you calling compute shaders....

[native otter]

I'm mistaken to use the word 'texture', I think it's more clear if I use 'image'.
My goal is to change the image tint a little bit. For example I have an image of some green branches, I want to slightly change to another green tint by the objects position.

Maybe I'm doing it correctly already with the hue node, but I wanted to pick different tint colors with the gradient myself, if that is common to do.

[meager pelican]

OK, that can be really easy. Interestingly, if you have a grey-scale leaf (basically shades of white, all same values in R, G and B) you can tint it to ANY COLOR by multiplying it by that color! Easy peasy.

So "just" pick your tint color out of the gradient, and multiply your leaf pixels by that tint color. But if the leaf starts out as only green, the result will only have a green channel in it. Whereas if it is grey-scale leaf, it can have nice fall colors with reds and even blues if you want them.

You can do masks and stuff too if you're working with an actual image and not a model.

[native otter]

I understand. Thank you. I will try something. In this case it's a pine tree texture, so I want to make it very slightly 😉

[meager pelican]

You could just vary the green channel by a random amount....

[native otter]

I will try..

[meager pelican]

I should mention too that you can do a luminescence calc and then multiply, or just use the green channel value as the luminescence. There's a node for luminescence/grey-scale in SG. So you don't have to really have an original image that is B&W because you can calc the B&W value from it.

[native otter]

Thanks for that. I'm still struggling to get a working shader..

[native otter]

I created something like this. It's working. Does it look alright to you?
I will try your black and white method later today.

[meager pelican]

If it is working, it is working! Yay.
I would have put the random result into the sampling of your gradient to vary the gradient result by a random value, then multiplied the texture result by that random gradient selection, but IDK if that makes sense to your use case.

You'd have to scale the random result range to match the expected sample gradient input

[kind juniper]

Hey, so maybe a stupid question, but can I use a RenderTexture as a Texture2DArray?

If I have an RWTexture2DArray<float4> on hlsl side, will a RenderTexture bind to it properly?

[meager pelican]

You have to create it the right way in script.
Texture array elements may also be used as render targets. Use RenderTexture.dimension to specify in advance whether the render target is to be a 2D texture array.
See the bottom part here: https://docs.unity3d.com/2020.1/Documentation/Manual/class-Texture2DArray.html

[kind juniper]

I'm getting this error if I try to bind a Texture2DArray. I guess it does not allow writing to it in compute shader?🤔

Compute shader (TerrainBaseGenerator): Property (Splatmaps) at kernel index (0): Attempting to bind texture as UAV but the texture wasn't created with the UAV usage flag set!

[kind juniper]

Ah, I guess that answers it.

[meager pelican]

You have to set the iswritable flag. Since you cannot import 2D arrays with the texture importer, your script will have to do it.

[kind juniper]

Yeah, but Texture2DArray does not have that property

Render textures have enableRandomWrite which I've been using successfully, but it seems like regular textures are not meant to be written to in compute shaders.

[meager pelican]

Right, use a render texture.

I missed that you weren't using an RT

[kind juniper]

I guess the issue was that I though of an RT as a special version of Texture2D

But it seems like it can be any kind of texture: 2d, 3d, array

[meager pelican]

It is special, it's writable. lol 😉

[kind juniper]

Yeah, but the point that I was missing is that it can take many forms.

[meager pelican]

Yeah. I haven't used that much, but from what I read...yeah. So each element is an RT, of the same size and I think same format.

[kind juniper]

ugh... But the regular shader still considers it as a Texture2D it seems.🤔

Error assigning 2D texture to 2DArray texture property '_Splatmaps': Dimensions must match

nvm. I had to explicitly set the dimension property. Thought that it was inferred from the constructor.

[meager pelican]

There's macros for declaring them too, in case you didn't see this: https://docs.unity3d.com/2020.1/Documentation/Manual/SL-TextureArrays.html

And then there's full blown 3D textures, although IDK if you can write them in a shader. EDIT there's an isreadable flag on them.

https://docs.unity3d.com/2020.1/Documentation/Manual/class-Texture3D.html

[kind juniper]

Yeah, that part I've figured out some time ago 😄

[native otter]

I'm wondering how I put the random result into the sampling of a gradient?

[ocean bough]

was busy for a few days, but I tried doing this in an empty scene now, and it doesn't seem like it works.

It renders the fore and background in a camera, it uses a volume with DoF
I add an overlay camera on this other camera, to only render the middleground without DoF.
The overlay camera gets rendered, but it doesn't place itself between the other layers. just goes on top. I'm not sure if I missed some setting or anything, but I can't seem to get it work no matter what i play with in priority/depth/culling

keep in mind i cant select dont clear on the overlay camera, only on the normal camera(that renders the fore and back) - where its called clear depth

ill show you some pics of the settings if you'd like.

it is possible to enable/disable these things btw in the render file. I can play with this in a shader using _CameraDepthTexture (and CameraOpaqueTexture)

[meager pelican]

The gradient sample takes a value from 0 to 1, with 0 being the left side and 1 being the right side. So picking a random value between 0 and 1 using your position seed (to always get the same value at any given position) should give you a random green (or whatever colors are in the gradient).

[ocean bough]

an update: i just realized background color places a full color on a stack of cameras, covering stuff in the "back". ALSO- the lights in 2D clears the color to black

[meager pelican]

IDK if that makes sense.

[ocean bough]

will keep experimenting

[meager pelican]

could be a 2D thing, I don't do much of that. Like I said it was a guess as to a maybe-how.

[ocean bough]

Yep understood, I think you're on a good path to it though, so I'll keep trying

will keep posted

[meager pelican]

so the output of the "random range" node would plug into the time value on the gradient, and the range would be 0 to 1 on the setting of the random range node.

[violet bough]

Is there a way to make the _Time variable in shaders not stutter in the editor while play mode is turned off?
Are there some settings for maybe either pausing it or making it update properly?

[native otter]

Ok, I managed to get some progress. It's funny, I notice that Z position doesn't change the color, only Y and X.

[regal stag]

There's a dropdown on the bar at the top of the Scene View window, which has something along the lines of "Always Update"

[regal stag]

That's because the Random Range input takes a Vector2.
The Position is Vector3 so it gets truncated (taking XY channels)

[quick cape]

How do I get random numbers in my ComputeShader?

I tried Everything

float random = scaleToRange01(hash((uint)23523*time*id.x));

uint hash(uint state)
{
    state ^= 2747636419u;
    state *= 2654435769u;
    state ^= state >> 16;
    state *= 2654435769u;
    state ^= state >> 16;
    state *= 2654435769u;
    return state;
}

Debug.Log confirms that the time value on the Shader side is definitely the FixedTime value

So even though my hash() function gets different inputs everytime

I still get the same freakin number out....

Omg I think I figured it out

I am multiplying it by 0 since my first id.x is 0

Yeaaaaahhhhh

Not my brightest debug moment >w<

[violet bough]

yeah found it thanks :)

[long moat]

Hello! can someone help me with original code based shaders? i understand nothing about them and all i wish is to add glossiness to a distortion shader

This is the distortion shader:

the goal is to basically reflect light based on the normal map, the shader only distorts whatever is below it

I would really appreciate if someone could help me out

[meager pelican]

Maybe start with some default environment reflections.
From here:https://docs.unity3d.com/2017.4/Documentation/Manual/SL-VertexFragmentShaderExamples.html

// refection vector calculated in vert() and passed in
// v2f's i.worldRefl member via 
// o.worldRefl = reflect(-worldViewDir, worldNormal);

// sample the default reflection cubemap, using the reflection vector
half4 skyData = UNITY_SAMPLE_TEXCUBE(unity_SpecCube0, i.worldRefl);
// decode cubemap data into actual color
half3 skyColor = DecodeHDR (skyData, unity_SpecCube0_HDR);
// output it!
fixed4 c = 0;
c.rgb = skyColor;
return c;```
You can't just "paste that in" but it's an example of environment reflections in a vert/frag shader. 
You have a world-space normal vector already, and can use that calc in the comment above to pass along a world-reflection vector in the v2f struct.  Sample it per pixel in the frag(), decode it, and decide what you want to do with it when applying it to your result.

[long moat]

thank you i really appreciate your help but i seriously have no idea where to even begin 😅 , how do i use the code that you wrote? how do i apply it the distortion shader? and how does it work?

i mainly need only this shader with light reflection/gloss, everything else uses regular standard material

everywhere i search it seems it is impossible to make a transparent shader to be glossy

[long moat]

along with that, why is that in game the distortion looks timid

while in editor it looks much better?

[meager pelican]

Hmm...IDK, play with the power and refraction settings maybe.

As for your shader, I literally copy/pasted it into notepad and edited in the changes for you. This is a rare thing, as I don't usually code stuff for others in discord questions, that's something you need to learn to do, so I want to be clear...no warranties. I haven't even loaded this into Unity so there could be syntax errors. But here it is, attached as a file.

And that line near the end with the 0.5 hard coded in it should have said:
vDistortColor.rgb = saturate(vDistortColor.rgb + skyColor * _ReflectionPower);

[long moat]

omg thank you so much, ill try it now 😁

btw changing power does not help..

for some reason ingame camera gives different visual effect

hmm yes its not working as you warned 😅, ill try to go over and search for syntax errors

[meager pelican]

Did you get a error-pink result?

Make sure to fix that one line...

[long moat]

pink shader yes

[meager pelican]

let me know the error in the console

[long moat]

i did

[meager pelican]

Oh, that's not too bad for notepad. lol

Let's see.

[long moat]

ok i did not noticed you also added .rgb, so i added it now, no errors but still pink shader

This error did remain, reapplied the shader:

[meager pelican]

Yeah, I just tracked that down. I missed a semicolon.
o.vReflectionWS = reflect(-worldViewDir, o.vNormalWs); Needs a semicolon on the end.

It's line 88 in the file.

That's what I get for using notepad. lol

[native otter]

I saved my .fbx object with multiple uv maps. I was wondering if I could change those to my liking in shadergraph?
(blender example)

I must be googling the wrong keyword, because I cannot find anything about switching uv maps.

[meager pelican]

That's because they're uv settings within the mesh. So a mesh has sets of UVs...like UV0 set, UV1 set, etc.
But IDK how to set that in Shader Graph as something on the blackboard.
You'll have to have the model map those to the UV sets in the mesh somehow, and I'm not blender-ish enough to tell you how.

[mental bone]

Uv node has a little dropdown that lets you sellect a uv set

[meager pelican]

I think they want to do it programmatically/dynamically.

[long moat]

yesss it works! thank you again! though, the result only lifted the brightness of the shader 😅

[meager pelican]

Yeah, it's just a simple additive blend. But fear not brave coder! Now that we have something to work with, we can mess with what we do.

[long moat]

for a notepad thats quite impressive

[native otter]

I see that this works, but there are only 4 in this node.. Is there a reason why it doesnt shows all of them?

[meager pelican]

lol

I'm sure there's a reason.........

somewhere

😉

It's a common...observation...

[long moat]

so is there a way to add this shine effect? something like in here

[meager pelican]

Let's start from the top.
What shape is that mesh that you're applying this shader to?

[long moat]

simple quad

[meager pelican]

OK, put it on a sphere instead

Just as an experiment

Turn off the quad

[long moat]

i mean, i do have that preview window for shader that is a sphere

[meager pelican]

Nah, in scene.

[long moat]

?

[meager pelican]

OK, that's exactly what I think you asked for, but sounds like it's not what you wanted. 😉

Now it has environmental reflections based on the OBJECTS normals (which is what that shader does).

[long moat]

i meant something like this, using the normal map to make it shine, like in metallic objects

[meager pelican]

They're not great reflections, but they're reflections. And it is distorting the background.

OK, we can mess with our calcs. Sec, afk.

[long moat]

altough, if ill be able to understand how to make it look ingame as it looks in editor ill be far more then happy

i tried raising refraction and power and it never reaches the same effect

[meager pelican]

IDK about that one ....yet.
But I was going off your "the goal is to basically reflect light based on the normal map," and I took that to mean environment reflected light. But maybe not. Maybe you're talking about reflecting the main light in self-reflecton.
Like a blinn-phong reflection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinn–Phong_reflection_model
See example pics.

But there's another problem...

[long moat]

it doesnt have to reflect the enviroment, only light sources, i already have underneath a shader that does planar reflection

mm ill try to show you what i mean, one sec

in another game, I have these cobblestone that reflect the orange light above them, it gives off this highlight effect

you can see it also here with the blue light on the wet ground

[meager pelican]

OK, let's talk about "The other problem".

The shader you started the question with is a shader that takes an object, like that sphere, and distorts the background behind it.

It does that with a grabpass.

[long moat]

ill be back in a moment 😅

[meager pelican]

OK.

So what it does is take a screen shot and then distorts it. It doesn't know anything about the normal vectors (although there is such a thing as screen-space normals) of what was drawn behind it.

So I assumed you wanted lighting on, say, a sphere or whatever. At first. And that's what stuck in my head. And then you posted screen shots, but I didn't realize that what you actually wanted was a post processing effect or something to distort the WHOLE SCREEN.

So let me get this figured out. You are putting this on a quad the covers the screen? Yes?

[visual gull]

Hey guys, I hope you're doing well. Does anyone knows why my preview is pink ? I followed a youtube tutorial but it doesn't seem to be working for me

And here's the tutorial i followed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZNjnyuKuRQ

[meager pelican]

1. Make sure you've saved it.
2. you have to set up your graphics pipeline to support shader graph, and make sure that the graph type matches your pipeline.

Are you in URP?

[visual gull]

I don't know where the problem could be coming from (i absolutely suck at shaders ^^'), maybe a missing package ?...

[visual gull]

I think I am in URP, where can i check that ?

[meager pelican]

Graphics settings.

[long moat]

not really, it only appears on the water tiles, it is the lowest tile in terms of height

[meager pelican]

So this is 2D?

Or no?

[long moat]

yup 2D

[meager pelican]

Crap on a cracker.

[long moat]

i mean, the tile is

[meager pelican]

I don't do much 2D

lol

[long moat]

the world is 3D in my game

[meager pelican]

OK

[long moat]

its a mix of both

some call it 2.5D

[visual gull]

Graphics settings

[long moat]

so its impossible to give the same bumped normal tile effect on a transparent shader?

[meager pelican]

well....we're talking about..."Who's normals?"

The normals on a quad...are all the same flat normals. You seem to be saying you want the normals of the object drawn BEHIND the quad.

[long moat]

i guess to sum it up, im trying to achieve the pool water shader, its transparent with distortion and it does reflect light

[long moat]

yeah but i can trick the light by using normal maps, this is the one i drew for the water

[meager pelican]

OK, that's better. We're actually still on the right track, and I'm going to buy a lottery ticket because I'm getting convinced I'm psychic or something. lol 😉

So we DO want normals on your quad

But you want to use a normal map passed in.

[long moat]

glad to hear you are interested on it as much as i do 😁

[meager pelican]

And you don't care about the normals on the background, but you're distorting based on water surface normals.

[long moat]

the only texture/map the shader will have is the normal map

[long moat]

yes im distorting the image below the shader with the normal map

what do you mean by "And you don't care about the normals on the background"?

[meager pelican]

You don't care about the normal direction of that block under the water.

It doesn't matter anymore

You care about the water surface normal and how it distorts the background

[long moat]

mm i dont think so.. for the most part, everything below the shader will be flat textures with single normal upwards

[meager pelican]

And when you put the new shader on it, with environment reflections, all you got was a lighter version.

[long moat]

yes overall slightly brighter

basically i decide the brightness with the reflection power slider

[meager pelican]

Right on all counts. And that slider is the same for all pixels, which isn't what we want.

But we'll keep it, because it scales the whole effect.

So with your normal map, we have to calc how relfective the angle is...that brings us back to blinn-phong or some such calc

[long moat]

how does it work on regular shader with high metallic, low smoothness and with a normal map?

[meager pelican]

OK, that's PBR lighing. And it's a bit more complicated.

You probably don't need that for mostly-transparent water, FYI.

[long moat]

so its not something that will work on a transparent shader

so how does anyone make a transparent shader with light reflection by normal map? even without distortion

or does distortion also play huge role on it?

[meager pelican]

It will work but it's more complex and slower.
Hell, you can probably do it in a surface shader.

I seem to remember someone having a transparent wall of some sort that distorted stuff behind it.

[long moat]

did it reflect light using normal map?

[meager pelican]

Probably. But PBR is overkill for water, IMO.

[long moat]

if its slower then i better avoid it

[meager pelican]

AFK for a bit

[long moat]

so what is the other option?

ok

[meager pelican]

Well, we have environment reflection information now (just the color of the walls/sky/whatever from the reflection probe).
We don't have the main light direction, nor its intensity/color. Yet.
And we have most of the info we need to calculate specular reflections.

And we already have some type of distorted background, even if it isn't scaled like you want it yet.

Do you want actual waves? Or just the color distortion. In other words...at the edges of the pool...right now they will be flat due to using a flat quad.

[long moat]

well the normal map animation already has this sort of pixelated wave

what do you mean by color distortion?

[meager pelican]

By that I mean that you don't pick the pixel directly behind, you pick a different one, causing distortion effect based on mormal mapping.

[long moat]

edges of the pool? if by that you mean the edges of each quad then no, itll look blocky... if its somehow when the shader touches a surface, I guess itll look nice

[meager pelican]

There's multiple quads?

[long moat]

multiple tiles that are quads that contain the exact same shader

tiles of water

[meager pelican]

OK, but...I guess what I'm asking is...
Are those different pools, or do you have, say, a 10 x 10 grid of tiles in that one pool pic you showed me?

[long moat]

umm, its both, its basically and island and there are water tiles both in and outside the island

this is basically the standard shader with blue color and the normal map that i use on water

so i mainly need it to reflect the pink pixels and everything else remains transparent

[meager pelican]

We should have started a thread.

[long moat]

i agree 😅

[meager pelican]

I'm going to recommend that we do one of two things now.

1. Start a thread so we don't keep flooding this main thread. But I won't be able to continue following it up alone, others will have to jump in, as I'll be at work.
2. check out various tuts for water shaders for BiRP. They have some methods for dealing with all this stuff so we don't have to reinvent the wheel. For example, they make waves by vertex displacement of a plane that has a lot of triangles, they do the waves in the shader, add caustics if you want them, etc.
   Unity even ships with some standard water shaders you can try.

[long moat]

the 2nd one ive been doing all day and still am searching, that is why im here 😅

[latent inlet]

hi, using TextMesh Pro, whenever I switch the shader of a text, it also changes the shader of all texts elements to that new shader, any help? I want all texts use one TMP shader, but one text to use another.

[timber isle]

What would you suggest for writing a shader if your looking for low level access?

[olive aspen]

Guys why is the structuredbuffer here not blue:

It also gives me this error:

[timber isle]

Are you using a assembly reference?

[olive aspen]

no, what is that

I'm just following this tut: https://youtu.be/WWI07UQbJ9E

?

[timber isle]

An assembly reference tells unity that you want to use an assembly outside of your project assembly

I'll find an example

[violet bough]

anybody any idea why this could be happening? I had a bug and tracked it down to sampling a render texture that i render my scene to

base.rgb = _PixelTex.Sample(point_clamp_sampler, i.screenUV).rgb;
return base;

[olive aspen]

I'm an idiot I used the wrong thing sorry, I would still like that explanation on assemby references tho

[timber isle]

My project is the Game folder. I need an assembly reference for GooglePlayGames so I can access that assemly...

[timber isle]

No worries. You will definitely need assembly references at some point...

[olive aspen]

I uh need to look those up because I do not know what an assembly is

Kind of overwhelming at this point, I do not know where to start learning this advanced stuff

[timber isle]

Definitely google it. You should find it easily. But don't worry, they really aren't too tuff... Don't worry about learning everything fast, just go at your own pace and you'll get it as you need it...

Just learn what you need as you need it...

[olive aspen]

Yep, that is what I'm doing now thank you

[timber isle]

How much difference is there between CG and HLSL?

[timber isle]

The text is unreadable...

[pale python]

Does anyone knows how to stop this from happening ?? .. I dont want the texture to get stretched like that, I rather want it to get repeated/tiling across the surface area available.

My current material is made of just 1 texture and it it's connected to the base.
the material is made by Unity shader graph and its ulit type
( the scene is using urp ).

[ocean bough]

ive sat all day with this now and i never actually came to a solution with your workaround, mainly the problem being that i could never get rid off the automatic clearing of the scene color in rendering. i just think unity 2d simply cannot do this with semi transparent assets. it would've worked if i had more control with opaque techniques

I kept searching around for ways to do it in a shader instead but i just simply couldnt find any way of making a really nice gaussian blur, the problem being sampling it correctly.

Stumbled upon this article, which is an actual goldmine. He explains how they tried several methods of doing EXACTLY what I've been trying to do, and in the end deciding to roll with the method of using separate files with baked blur directly in photoshop, in the end showing up to be a way more performant and actually not at all memory issue. So I'll be rolling with this. Makes it a lot simple to handle everything too
https://80.lv/articles/depth-of-field-in-unity-for-2d-games-with-semi-transparent-sprites/

I think the biggest issue out of all here is the way to do this with specifically semi transparent sprites, just like these guys, because Unity can't really handle it in a nice way

probably explains why i could search for this forever and never find an answer. simply because i dont think there is one simple answer

makes me wonder though how other games have done it, like ori

[meager pelican]

See, and I don't do 2D much, so I took a shot.
Glad you found a performant solution 🙂

[ocean bough]

yeah :) still worth to try what you suggested. made me learn a little bit more about how the rendering works.
and yeah, as for this solution, its something that fits with my level of expertise at least so thats good.

mucho gracias!

[atomic bloom]

Hello I'm new here and I've been trying to use the unity shadergraph but it stays the same default pink texture. I've changed my project to URP I'm not sure what the problem is

[wintry valley]

Is there a way to force writing to the depth buffer on a 2nd pass of a transparent material?

The first pass should be transparent and use the depth buffer, and the 2nd pass should ONLY write to the depth buffer for a later stage with decals.

[karmic hatch]

Did you set the target in the graph inspector?

(Open the graph, open the graph inspector (button in top right), then select URP)

[atomic bloom]

Universal is URP correct ?

[regal cargo]

universal render pipeline yea

[atomic bloom]

Yes

[karmic hatch]

Ok so what is your shadergraph then

Is it just the fragment and vertex nodes?

[atomic bloom]

yes

[dawn ginkgo]

hey, I want to copy paste the nodes but that doesn't work. Im trying to export my shader graph to another project and it doesn't really work. what can i do?

[meager pelican]

Well, you can disable color writing to the color buffer (thus making it "transparent") and update depth only.
But please specify what pipeline you're in, first.
Assuming you're in BiRP and you're hand writing the shaders, research "COLOR MASK" and "ZWRITE" in shader lab.

[wintry valley]

It is in URP. I have tried ColorMask 0 and ZWrite On and ZTest LEqual, is that all I would need to do?

[lavish plaza]

Hey I'm working on a stylized shadow shader that I place on a plane beneath each actor. Then It uses a "shadow caster" camera's depth texture to draw dithered shadows beneath characters. The problem is that when two or more actors get close, you can see their shadow planes overlapping and their shadow dither patterns not lining up. Is it possible for me to somehow check what was blocking the light on a fragment and only draw the owner's shadow on the plane? I can't think of how I would get that information to the fragment shader.

Shader is written in shaderlab/hlsl and running in unity 2021.3.9f1 with urp.

This may be a tough question to try and solve over discord.

[gritty steeple]

Hey guys, What's the best way to show fingerprints under a UV light?

I figured a shader but my experience with shaders is minimal to none.

[cosmic prairie]

just dither in screen or world space instead of object space

[lavish plaza]

One of my goals was to make the pattern move with the character, which I think rules out screen and world space as being a good solution.

[open jackal]

Hey there, I just imported my texture in a shader graph and it has this weird diamond shape around it

this is the actual texture

i import the same thing into a shader graph and it gives me the light blue diamond around it

[vocal narwhal]

https://help.vertx.xyz/graphics/shader-graph/alpha-output

[tacit parcel]

assign light attenuation to alpha

[timber isle]

I finally found something on this (for anyone else looking for info on this...):
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/shader-shaderlab-code-blocks.html
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/SL-ShaderPrograms.html

[meager pelican]

I think @cosmic prairie is correct. It was my first thought as well.
The point being that you align the dithering pattern on the grid formed in either screen space or world space, so the squares line up when two character shadows overlap. Black is black, and squares are squares.

The problem, though, is if it dithers based on any intensity. If you're at a hard-binary shadow or no-shadow, not a problem. But if you have any degree of fade off...where the dither patterns differ, the overlaps won't match up...if that makes sense. Right now your shadows don't look like a traditional dither so much as they look like a checker pattern...always the same pattern. And if so you're in luck...just do what Peter said and use world-space dithering to align the grids.

Shadow existence is still calculated relative to the character positions, so they move with the character. The pattern is relative to world/screen space.

[meager pelican]

In theory. Did it work? If not, why not...what's not working?

[wintry valley]

I have water that has a different color depending on the scene depth, and a decal that needs to render on top of the water. The decal is rendering on render queue 5000

The water is rendering on render queue 3000.

However, the depth buffer is not being wrote to so the decals still use the depth from before the water and draws below the water.

[cosmic prairie]

The problem would be with the current setup and what is described, is even if you could override one shadow with the other, it will still look weird, the first shadow to render on an overlap would not be visible

[meager pelican]

So you're saying the 2nd pass didn't work? It didn't update the depth?

If you're drawing the water last except for the decal, you should just be able to draw it while updating the depth buffer. You can draw transparents and update depth. At least I think you can in URP, should be able to. One pass.

[wintry valley]

The decal is the build in solution, are you still able to draw the depth before drawing it without modifying engine source code?

[meager pelican]

Are you hand-writing URP shaders?

Or using SG?

At any rate, "just" turn depth-writing on when you draw the water. What happened when you tried that?

[wintry valley]

When I do that, it draws the depth before accessing for the shader for the water, so it treats the entire mesh for water as 0 depth, and draws it like coast rather than shallow or deep water

And the water is in shader graph, the decals are the build in shader graph solution

[meager pelican]

Huh. I don't understand that (why). I mean, the depth write happens AFTER the pixel is "sent", not before. Is it a multi-pass shader, excluding your decal-update pass, is there still more than one pass? E.G. with your decal update transparent pass is there three or more passes?

Oh, SG.

[wintry valley]

I believe it is all as one pass. When I force write depth on, it looks the same as if I render is as a geometry render pass rather than a transparent render pass.

But when it does that, the depth buffer is correct and the decals display on top of the water

Another thing I tried was a hand written URP shader that is on render queue 3001 to render right after the water that has those lines of code in the shader to try to force the depth buffer to the water level

[meager pelican]

Yeah, might be an SG thing. Not sure what's going on. Maybe post your shader so people can help debug this issue.

In theory, you should be able to have a trasparent shader, and still output depth, it's just not commonly done with transparent things.

[wintry valley]

The shader itself is quite large, because it does color calculations, and modifies the vertices to create waves. Do you want to see just the depth buffer / color part?

[meager pelican]

I'd start with showing settings.

I don't care how it looks as long as the depth value is right and it looks OK.

But from the sound of it, it's not right

IDK what SG does differently with transparent things that would impact this. If it writes depth, it writes depth. To me.

[wintry valley]

This is on URP 10, I have tried on URP 15 as well with Force Depth to on. I am using URP 10 because that is what the other developers were using when I joined the project

[meager pelican]

So 15 has an option for "force depth = true" or something?

But 10 doesn't? Because if you need to use 10, then, you're screwed.

[wintry valley]

I found this online from a different person, and this is URP 15. This did write to the depth buffer, but it had the same issue with the depth buffer affecting the water color

The other people aren't opposed to upgrading, just need probable reason to.

https://forum.unity.com/threads/urp-decals-on-transparent-surfaces.1273913/

It was from this article

The two outcomes so far is either:
No depth write, water looks fine but decal underwater
Yes depth write, but water has wrong depth texture and thus wrong color / texture

[meager pelican]

That last point, I don't understand why it would have the wrong depth texture. Confused here.

I get why they changed the decal to be a later event in that article. Because skybox is drawn before transparents are drawn.

I suppose you could try to see if you can shoe-horn the water into the opaque queue, but do alpha blending or whatever.

[wintry valley]

No writing to zbuffer gives the first image.

Writing to the zbuffer (forcing, or rendering as opaque, geometry, or alphatest) gives the second result

That shader does calculations based on the depth to determine whether or not to add white spots for foam for coastal water, or with little to no room between the water and the terrain under it, which is why it has that color.

[meager pelican]

Yeah, but the depth should be the bottom-depth.

That's what I'm not understanding.

Why is it getting it's own depth?

Wait.

I think I know.

Did you put it in the regular opaque queue? Or opaque + something.

You have to draw the bottom first.

[wintry valley]

The image I had there was as AlphaTest

2450 I believe

[meager pelican]

Opaques are drawn front to back...closest to farthest.

So you have to draw the bottom (farthest) before you draw the water. So the water has to be in a higher queue number.

The water is essentially over-draw

[wintry valley]

The terrain under it is render queue 2000
That 2nd image I provided was render queue 2450 (for the water)

[meager pelican]

That's still an opaque range, yes?

[wintry valley]

Opaque is in the 1000s, Geometry starts at 2000, and AlphaTest starts at 2450

Transparent starts at 3000

Without +- render queue like you can do (eg 2999 is Transparent-1)

[meager pelican]

IDK why you want to alpha test, is there a reason?

[wintry valley]

Draw after terrain (2000) but before transparent (3000)

I want it to be transparent ideally, just writing to zBuffer

If it would help I can send the generated .shader file that the shader graph creates

[meager pelican]

Yeah, it gets confusing. IDK if URP forces settings on things based on queue number, but "transparent" is just a matter of shader settings, not really queue numbers. Per se. It about sort order though.

I'd try queue 2010 or something, and no alpha clipping unless you need it. You do need depth buffer clipping.

[wintry valley]

That effect happens with anything except transparent render queues

[meager pelican]

Damn.

Maybe others, smarter than me, will figure it out. I'm at a loss as to what the hell it is doing. It should render the <=2000's before your water, and your water should get the depth buffer value which should be the "ocean bottom". Then you should be able to blend on top of that. In theory. IDK what is happening in practice. Frame debugger might help you.

[wintry valley]

I also just tried copying the generated shadergraph code into a test hlsl shader and modifying the ZWrite property and didn't change anything either.

How do I access the frame debugger?

[meager pelican]

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/FrameDebugger.html

[wintry valley]

Aha, I have this pulled up. Is there any way to view depth buffer with it?

I can see that the water is indeed drawing after the rest of the geometry but before the decals as expected. This is similar to RenderDoc

[meager pelican]

Yeah, and yes.
There's a depth buffer view, right where you select the render target (keep reading down the page).

You can also check shader properties to see if depth write is enabled, blending, etc.

[wintry valley]

What a handy depth texture -.-

Appreciate the link for the tool though

[meager pelican]

lol

[amber saffron]

Might need remapping

[wintry valley]

How would I go about doing that?

[wintry valley]

Also the Frame Debugger says that the water texture is indeed writing to the zbuffer in transparent mode, just the decals are not displaying on top of the water for some reason

[amber saffron]

Use the levels range

Top of the window

[meager pelican]

That article talked about a depth buffer transfer pass. Which concerns me, as to when it happens.
That's why I suggested queue 2010

[tacit parcel]

it wont I guess, transparents dont write to zbuffer so your decal will be rendered at the bottom of the sea

[wintry valley]

Even though in the .shader I put ZWrite to On?

Before and after the water draw call

It might just be something with the decal shader, not necessarily the water depth buffer

[meager pelican]

Yeah.
Why are there still two draw calls for the water shader?

[wintry valley]

That is a good question lol. The generated .shader only has a single pass, so I am not sure. It is using gpu instancing too

[meager pelican]

So you're no longer doing a 2nd pass manually or whatever, that's good.

Just checking

Not two materials on the thing.

OK, so it is updating the depth buffer.

I cannot tell when/if the decal shader uses that same depth buffer or if there's a copy pass somewhere BEFORE the water is drawn.

But if the decal is using that depth buffer, it looks updated AF so why wouldn't the decal use it?

[tacit parcel]

Isnt decal use it's own buffer? dbuffer?

[meager pelican]

That's what I'm wondering, and where it comes from and WHEN

[wintry valley]

Is there a way to write to that buffer?

[meager pelican]

Hang on, Cyan is here. (insert Superman swoosh sound)

[wintry valley]

The 3 SRP batches that includes the decals I have included here, including their details

[regal stag]

I think decals would also use the Depth Texture, so there indeed may be a CopyPass to copy the depth buffer, or a DepthPrepass, if it can't copy.

[meager pelican]

Yeah but that's why we're trying a queue like 2010 or something in opaque, and it's updating the opaque depth buffer. So I'm at a loss right now.

[amber saffron]

Even when rendering in the opaque queue, if transparent shader doesn't have the code to sample from the decals buffer, it wont do it

[wintry valley]

It updated the ZBuffer no matter what, in Opaque or transparent. It should be a transparent so you can see under it, just need some way to update the ZBuffer information onto the decal

The decal render queue is set to 3001 in these images, to draw right after the water (3000)

[amber saffron]

I haven't looked into how URP does decals, but if it's like HDRP on opaque decals, they are drawn in a custom buffer after the opaque depth pass

Ah wait, that's not decal "projectors"

[wintry valley]

Correct me if I am wrong, but there is a setting in HDRP that says Affects Transparent, correct?

Also correct, this is not decal projector. This is ShaderGraph/Decal

[mental bone]

Speaking of decals. How would you guys to skinned mesh decals? Im not a fan of the render the mesh into uv space and paint on a temp rt aproach, yet I can seem to think of anything else

[amber saffron]

See doc here, you're supposed to apply the decal shader to a projector : https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.render-pipelines.universal@15.0/manual/renderer-feature-decal.html

Either use the projector to project to the depth and underlying geometry, or use a mesh, but it won't project

[wintry valley]

Where do I find the component for Decal Projector? Is it in a package I need to import?

[amber saffron]

It should be in URP package.
iirc, new object / rendering / decal projector

[wintry valley]

What version of URP was the decal projector added? It might be on a version later than what I am on

[regal stag]

I think 2021.2, or at least that's the earliest the docs page appears

[wintry valley]

Also, I was reading through that doc you posted and saw this. This wouldn't apply so long as I am force writing to depth texture, correct?

[amber saffron]

According to the docs, it appeared at version 12.x (2021.2+)

[amber saffron]

But this will also break your water rendering, right ?

[wintry valley]

It is currently force writing to the depth buffer.

[amber saffron]

And like mentioned, even if the water does depth write, if the transparent shader code doesn't have what is needed to sample from the decal buffers, then it won't do it

[regal stag]

Force writing to the depth buffer isn't exactly the same thing as the depth texture though

[amber saffron]

You could technically be able to do it yourself

[regal stag]

I guess it would also depend whether the decal is rendering using the DBuffers or a screen space method

If you're on earlier versions I'd assume it's just screenspace atm?

[wintry valley]

I am currently on 2020.3.34f1

URP 10

We are probably going to be updating our client to 2022 after the next update in a few weeks, so I can mess around with the other settings for now so I know what to do when we update.

[regal stag]

Are you handling the decal yourself then? Or is the decal graph still a thing in v10?

[wintry valley]

The decal shader exists, but not the decal projector.

[amber saffron]

Decal shadergraph target ?

[regal stag]

Are you sure it's a decal target, and not just a shadergraph named decal?

What appears in the Graph Settings?

[wintry valley]

I am assuming its using screen position based on this clip-space section

[regal stag]

Yep

[amber saffron]

So, this is "just" a regular transparent shader named "decal", not a "real" decal

[wintry valley]

It functions perfectly like a decal on opaque geometry, but transparent it does not

But it is not a decal projector

[amber saffron]

I think it's just an issue of rendering order in that case

[wintry valley]

In the frame debugger it did the pass for the water, the decal after

[regal stag]

I think atm you are writing the water to the depth buffer but those changes aren't appearing in the depth texture because it's already been copied / generated using opaque passes.

You would need to write a custom renderer feature to DrawRenderers() directly into _CameraDepthTexture

[meager pelican]

Oy.
And your water should not be thought of as "transparent" in your case, it should be thought of as "blended opaque" e.g. see through dirt, and in an opaque queue. Or wait until you upgrade everything.

[wintry valley]

These 3 images show that the water and decals are being drawn in the same batch ( I believe )

They are all under the same render loop, so could it be that it writes to the depth buffer which is used later, but not in the same render loop?

[amber saffron]

Looking at the screeshots of the framedebugger higher, everything makes sense to me :
Water is drawn first, wrinting into depth buffer
Decal is drawn after, with ztest, causing it to not display where the water mesh is above

[regal stag]

The decals are rendering in their third screenshot, just the ones on the water are a bit lower than the ones on the land/ice

[amber saffron]

Yes, I saw that, but to me this rendering is expected, and I guess the issue is still about some parts of the decals disappearing

[regal stag]

Ah true

[amber saffron]

If I can give some suggestion @wintry valley :
Based on the current look, you could render your decals as opaque alpha clipped, that would force them to render before water and in depth.
The missing parts would the be rendered in the water with a small blending effect that would maybe even be nice to see

[wintry valley]

Here's the render order with the frame debugger viewed. Opaque > Water > Decal

[wintry valley]

Its not so much the blending effect, it just needs to be at the water surface so when you see it from an angle you can tell where it is like on land

[amber saffron]

Couldn't you place the decals mesh at the water level then ?

[wintry valley]

The water isn't flat though, it has a compute shader that moves the vertices for waves. In theory, yes

[amber saffron]

Well, if you really want perfect water height matching decals, you can go the route of writing you own rendererfeature, that:

• renders water in a custom depth buffer
• project decals vertically on this depth buffer, and stores in a screen space decal buffer
• then in the main loop render the water with the water shader, sampling this decal buffer

[wintry valley]

I'll write that down and give that a shot. I appreciate it a lot. Thanks to @regal stag and @meager pelican as well! Appreciate all 3 of you!

[fervent flare]

In Unity 2021.3 the smoothness property in shadergraph does not seem to do anything?

can anyone give me a hint as to what changed?

you cannot use PBR properties in shadergraph anymore ?

[mint wave]

hello i recreate a simple lambertian in shadergraph iv'e got something like that
to get my direction light i use something like that for my custom nde
Light mainLight = GetMainLight();
direction = -mainLight.direction;

oups i change my normal vector to world

and it seem to be good

but i probably can do that easyli with this half3 LightingLambert(half3 lightColor, half3 lightDir, half3 normal)

in lghting.hlsl

[amber saffron]

Smoothness should work. What are you seeing/doing that makes you think it's not working ?

[restive radish]

I my game, I do this to use custom light edited from lighting.hlsl:

1. Copy lighting.hlsl to folder XXXX
2. Generate the code for the shader graph and save it into the folder XXXX
3. Search for all places with #include ".../lighting.hlsl" and change to #include "lighting.hlsl" (that will link to the copy in your XXX folder).
4. Edit the UniversalFragmentPBR function as you wish, and you will see the changes even during play mode (in editor, not in release).

Using this method, you can, for example, change PBR to BliinPhong (very slight gain), or toon lighting, for example.

[mint wave]

i see exactly what you mean

[restive radish]

is your plan to add bands to the lighting?

[mint wave]

no my plan it's to replace shadow by hatches

[restive radish]

ohh, ok

well, you can also do the same to shadows.hlsl

[mint wave]

greaaat

[restive radish]

I don't know what part of the code you change that, but feel free to experiment

[mint wave]

i find some code who perform that, but i really want to do on my own

[restive radish]

I think that way is more powerful than creating a custom function node on shader graph

[mint wave]

probably its way more efficient

I still have a lot of shadows, on how to quantify the shadows to replace them by points or stripes

[restive radish]

It also took me a while to get proper shadows on a 2d character on a 3d world, because it can get messy when lighting or camera hits from different directions. I messed a bit with shader for that, then gave up and found a way easier way.

especially nice for point lights

[mint wave]

an easier way ?? sound interresting 😉

[hearty obsidian]

could someone explain to me why the triplanar node uses world position/normals by default?

afaik moving any object using triplanar mapping in world space will result in an undesired effect, so I'm assuming I'm misunderstanding its uses. Would like clarifications on what it is that I am missing, if that makes any sense

[amber saffron]

Having it in world space allows to have automatic texture transitions from one object to the other, and is not scale dependant

No

[hearty obsidian]

Oh yeah that makes sense, thank you

[restive radish]

I believe it's the most common implementation, nothing special to it

[amber saffron]

"depth", not "deep" 🙂
But those settings are related to this : https://docs.unity3d.com/2019.1/Documentation/Manual/SL-CullAndDepth.html

You shouldn't have clicked that.

It compiles all the shader variants and then will try to open the humongus code in a single file

Next time for a shadergraph, click "View Generated Shader"

[kind juniper]

I'm not sure if it's normal for it to be 8 kk lines...🤔

I think it's only supposed to include your code and whatever dependencies it has. Unless you're using every single node there is and in many different combinations?🤔

Several thousand lines, sure, but millions?

[amber saffron]

I think that's the result of "compile and show code" ...

[restive radish]

Each multi compile will create a new copy of each variant. It can really add up exponentially.

[kind juniper]

So you're saying that every shader in the project compiles into 8kk lines of code?

[restive radish]

usually unity strips unused variants, but that button compiles all of them

[kind juniper]

Hmmm

[restive radish]

I guess unity only does automatically for shader features, though.

I leave that to people that know more

[hazy zinc]

@kind juniper okay! so, here it goes... will this lag or not? it lags a lot even an editor, its supposed to be smooth. the animation is shader-based, not animator-based.

[kind juniper]

I know there are many people in this discord, that can read people's thoughts, but sadly I'm no one of them, so I can't see your code.

Or shader graph(if it is)

Interesting.

[open jackal]

So I have these sliced sprites. I'm trying to apply emission by applying the second sprite on the first sprite. Problem is, I'm not able to drag them into the shader graph after slicing them. All youtube videos I found told that I needed my spritesheets sliced before animating. How do I make them work with my shader graph?

[kind juniper]

It's really subjective and case dependent. Can't generalize. I had some issues with it myself, but I think I did not troubleshoot it properly and made too hasty of assumptions.

[hazy zinc]

oh, that, one moment!

[kind juniper]

Hmmm... It's not extremely heavy. It should definitely not lag in the editor.

Try profiling. Maybe it's not the shader's fault(or rather not just the shader fault)

[hazy zinc]

okie, certainly will! but the question is: should I bother with such a shader at all? I can just animate that flowing energy and it will probably be less heavy, especially that I'm targeting mobile only.

[kind juniper]

Hard to say. It's not super lightweight, but I think mid -high tier devices should be able to handle it. Best way to tell for sure is test and profile on the device.

[kind juniper]

Animation would be faster, yeah

[hazy zinc]

okay! then animation is what I will try to choose. One more question in that case though, should I return to built-in pipeline? Or urp has other advantages aside from shader creation?

Again, the target is mobile

[kind juniper]

Your choice. There's a controversy about whether urp is slower or faster on mobile compared to birp.

It's supposed to be faster

[hazy zinc]

if it's a controversy, than urp is not significantly slower, right? That's ok enough for me.

[kind juniper]

Especially if you don't employ any optimization techniques on birp.

[hazy zinc]

Thank you!! Okay, then will try to stay with urp 🙂

[astral spade]

How can I smoothly fade in and out this effect? https://pastebin.com/tVqBZkgW

[ripe grove]

is it possible to make unlit shaders receive shadow? without custom lighting

[rare flax]

https://youtu.be/m6YqTrwjpP0
hey guys im trying to follow this tutorial where it needs me to create a Pipeline Asset, but the Create dropdown is changed and the Rendering section doesnt have the same options, can someone help?

[karmic hatch]

In scene view, it doesn't by default update shaders every frame, so they often look slow. There's an option to make it update every frame and I imagine the performance would be fine

Certainly doesn't look too expensive at any rate

[lavish plaza]

Hey thanks for the input. I was asleep when you sent this. I'm in a tough spot with this effect. I have tried screen and world space dither on this before and it causes a TON of visual noise. I'm trying to mimic the look of the shadows in total carnage, where they were part of the character sprites. This means it is acceptable for two objects casting shadows to have shadows overlap and look weird when they overlap. The problem is when one object casts a shadow onto another actor's shadow receiver as well as its own.

[hazy zinc]

okay! sad or not, I already have a animator alternative to my shader and will use it. but, will make note from your information for the future possible shaders. thank you!

[lavish plaza]

I'm thinking that maybe if instead of using a camera to create the depth texture, I could have a custom script that records depth in r, and an actor ID in g. Actors and their shadows would get matching IDs. Then I could use that ID channel to only draw shadows when the IDs line up. I'm gonna start by trying to just cast 512x512 rays in a c# script to generate the texture. This sounds like a good way to kill performance so let me know if there is a better way.

[meager marten]

hello, im not sure how to word this but is there any way to move uvs in runtime? the effect im trying to achieve has the selected uv vertices move to the right, but i dont know how thatd be changed in runtime in unity

[meager marten]

nevermind, found a solution, used 2 uv maps, one with the top line at the start, another a bit further on, then used a lerp mode between both uv maps in shader graph

[latent rampart]

Anyone have an idea how to get this kind of shader? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj7_66WkVMg

I need it for rendering bounds. I'm currently using GL.Lines to render the bounding box but this seems like an easier implementation.

[latent rampart]

hmm maybe I should just stick with GL

[fervent garnet]

Hi how would I change a color's value (hsV) there is a saturate and Hue nodes but no value

I tried this but it does not seem right

[meager pelican]

IDk what he's doing, I haven't seen his script he put on each object, but it sounds like maybe a custom inspector, or he's making/updating line renderer objects.

What's wrong with GL.Lines? He's definitely showing it in edit mode witch implies he could be using gizmos.

[meager pelican]

You're multiplying the value by 10. It's probably blowing the color out of range, I suspect.
The code here: https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.shadergraph@14.0/manual/Colorspace-Conversion-Node.html?q=colorspace
for HSV>RGB implies that the z component is indeed the value.

Maybe try setting it to a value between 0 and 1 directly.

[viscid pike]

Hello, I'm trying to make my first vegetation shader in HDRP but I have this weird behavior were the grass work well as a GameObject but is black and not moving when placed as a detail on the terrain (Vertex Lit). Using 2021.3.7 HDRP

Anyone have an idea of what going on?

[meager pelican]

I'm not sure if you're updating texturing uv's, or vertex positions on the model...your pic shows what looks like a vertex move to me. If those are UV mappings they're out of bounds.

Doesn't matter, though, there's two ways to update either of them:

1. Update the mesh itself using a c# script. It has UV's and verts in the model. Look at unity docs about mesh data.
2. Pass offsets to a custom shader, setting the offset values on the material. You may have to flag the verts with a flag to know what one you're updating. You can flag it with vertex colors indicated what vertex number you have so you know how to apply offsets.
   For either, that is done in the vertex() function/stage of the shader, although texture UV's can be done in the fragment stage too, it's probably slower unless you have to do it per pixel for some reason.

[sly breach]

how can i check if the renderer is using a particular shader pass ?

[astral spade]

How can I smoothly fade in and out this effect? https://pastebin.com/tVqBZkgW

[white pivot]

why i cant chnge the shader?

[signal niche]

Hi for shader graph how do I reference the texture as UI's Image source image?

[kind juniper]

Need to create a new material and assign it. Can't modify the default material.

[kind juniper]

You probably need to name your texture property reference the right way. You can probably figure it out from looking at the default hi material properties or shader code.

[white pivot]

thanks

[blissful marlin]

I'm trying to animate a render texture in HDRP, the material animates just fine, but the render texture is static. Does anyone know what could be causing this?

Shader "CustomRenderTexture/CausticsShader"
{
    Properties
    {
        _Color ("Color", Color) = (1,1,1,1)
        _Tex("InputTex", 2D) = "white" {}
        _TimeX("TimeX", float) = 1
        _TimeY("TimeY", float) = 1
        _Speed("Speed", float) = 1
    }

    SubShader
    {
        Lighting Off
        Blend One Zero

        Pass
        {
            Name "Caustic Shader Pass"
            CGPROGRAM
            #include "UnityCustomRenderTexture.cginc"

            #pragma vertex InitCustomRenderTextureVertexShader
            #pragma fragment frag
            #pragma target 3.0

            float4      _Color;
            float       _TimeX;
            float       _TimeY;
            float      _Speed;
            sampler2D   _Tex;

            float4 frag(v2f_init_customrendertexture IN) : COLOR
            {
                float time = 0;

                time = sin(_Time.x * 20) * _Speed;
                // Scroll UV coordinates by time
                return _Color * tex2D(_Tex, IN.texcoord.xy + time);
            }
            ENDCG
        }
    }
}

[kind juniper]

Where do you actually update/render to the texture?

[tacit parcel]

unless it's a new feature I'm not aware of, a shader/material cant change the content of the (render)texture itself

well.. maybe except a compute shader..

[regal stag]

I would assume they are using a Custom Render Texture asset. https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-CustomRenderTexture.html
I'd check the Initialization and Update modes on that. If they aren't set to Realtime it's not going to update automatically.

[upper nova]

I made a scan line shader, I was wondering if there was a way to rotate the final result?
I could change the frequency of the Checkerboard UV but it only scrolls UP/Down or Left/Right.
The rotate node (both UV and Rotate About Axis) just change the color of the input and not rotate it.

Is there a way to do this in the shader graph?

[amber saffron]

Rotating the UVs input of the checker node should work

[upper nova]

I completely missed that :x

Yeah, I tried rotating it in a different place (Where Optional Sprite was)
Works now
Thanks :)

[meager marten]

Thank you, I found another solution which I said under my original question

[astral spade]

How can I smoothly fade in and out this effect? https://pastebin.com/tVqBZkgW

[tacit parcel]

so, it is a new feature I was not aware of...

Wait, that feature was available from unity 2017? and I only heard about it today 🤦‍♂️

[mighty flax]

You add parameters to your shader and then tween/lerp them on the material instance 👍

[astral spade]

how

I don't know anything about shaders.

[unkempt torrent]

you must have some parameters in your drunk shader, just lerp them from 0 to desired value, it will make the smooth transition

[proper ermine]

Is there a way to inspect a sub graph from a shader at a particular point?

For instance... That group "Head" can I see the subgraph in there with those inputs?

I'm finding it hard to debug without being able to see in it :/

[proper ermine]

So I copied the entire subgraph, pasted it into the main shader and just hooked up the inputs into the slots there.

I managed to fix it this way but if anyone knows if it's possible to look into a subgraph at a point so you can see the results with the inputs, I'd much appreciate such information

[sharp flint]

hey guys,

i have a problem i want to render an mp4 file over a shader called Unlit and then play that video back in a loop as a affect infront of the camera but i always get this error if i try to play

Unexpected timestamp values detected. This can occur in H.264 videos not encoded with the baseline profile. Timestamps will be skewed to correct the playback for

[quaint coyote]

Another toon shader in the wall?
https://youtube.com/shorts/Orl4x0Yymew?feature=share

[craggy jay]

hello, i'm trying to make a smoke trail effect in shadergraph by sampling 3d perlin noise with the world position, which is working perfectly. However I'm trying to make it move along the object by scrolling it's UVs in a specific axis, but since I'm using the world position to get the perlin noise, I can't really do this. Does anyone know how I can go about making this scrolling smoke trail effect?

mainly, i'm looking for a way to convert world coordinates to uv coordinates and vice versa

my current idea on doing this is to first get the perlin noise, then convert it to uv coordinates and then scroll the uvs

but there doesn't seem to be any way to do that

also if it helps, i'm using the built in trail renderer as my object

[karmic hatch]

Do you want it to follow the object as it moves?

[craggy jay]

the object is never moving, i'm doing a raycast that creates a trail renderer immediately from the starting point and end point (can also have reflected points off of walls and such), i'm just trying to make the illusion that is is moving

[karmic hatch]

Can you just take world coordinates and discard one axis?

[craggy jay]

yes and no? i can discard one axis and then reimplement it later, which is what i was messing around with when I was using the tiling and offset node

i think i could just get the noise from the uv coords itself, but then it would warp it because it gets stretched along the line?

oh wait, there's a texture mode that lets me tile it

oh i'm dumb lmao, i can just tile it and it works perfectly fine for what I need

i'm just using the uv now and not thinking about the world position at all

[tight phoenix]

I'm (still) working on my thin film shader and I think I am very close, but am making a mistake somewhere I'm unclear about.

{
    float3 L = inLightDir;
    float3 V = inViewDir;
    float3 N = inWorldNormal; // at least one of these three is not getting the correct input.
    float d = inDistance;

    float cos_ThetaL = dot(L, N);
    float thetaL = acos(cos_ThetaL);
    float sin_thetaR = (IOR1 / IOR2) * sin(thetaL);
    float thetaR = asin(sin_thetaR);

    float u = IOR2 * 2 * d * abs(cos(thetaR));
    float3 color = 0;

    float shift = 0;
    if ((IOR1 < IOR2)!=(IOR2 < IOR3)) shift += 0.5; //this doesn't appear to do anything.

    for (int n = 1 + shift; n <= steps; n++)
    {
        // Constructive interference
        float wavelength = u / n;
        color += inline_spectral(wavelength);
    }
    color = saturate(color);
    Out = color;
}```

Im pretty sure at least one of my 3 world coordinate references is incorrect because when I rotate around the mesh, the fresnel colors do not change at all, only when I rotate the mesh itself do they change, which is not the expected output

my other hangup is the output and expected output differ slightly

In real life as the thin film distance increases in size it seems it goes from black to white to yellow and then starts to repeat the colors. The Shader seems to start blue, do one rainbow, and then had a dark blue gap before starting to repeat colors. Once it starts to repeat colors it looks 1:1 identical, its only the start that's a little different.

I havent been able to figure out why that is the case or correct it out of the shader

my outpuit vs a calculation of the expected output vs a real like photo of an output

theirs kinda turns greyish while mine goes nuclear white

and mine starts blue while theirs starts black

I noticed in the For loop, the more times it loops, the more blue the starting color becomes

actually the more blue the ENTIRE thing becomes

maybe this in in part causing the problem?

[craggy jay]

is there a way to keep track of a variable that decreases overtime within shadergraph? or do I need to create a separate monobehavior for that?

like having a thing gradually disappear after 2 seconds or something like that

[harsh marsh]

Is there a way to get Scene Color to work in shader graph for the built-in render pipeline since it's now supported as of unity 2021?

[karmic hatch]

you could set it through a script, you could also use the Time node (though idk if it's time since the start, or time since the shader started running; if the former, you'd still need a script to set the start time property of the material)

[craggy jay]

the time node does have something for deltatime which i can use, but I don't know how I'd be able to keep track of the variable within shadergraph

[tight phoenix]

is there a way to achieve this same result without using an if statement?

[karmic hatch]

I always assumed deltatime is like Time.deltaTime in scripts; it's just the time between frames? Not sure though now you mention it.

Anyway, you can create a float property for the start time, set it in Start() with a script, and then just use (time - startTime) as your time since start

[karmic hatch]

Will probably compile to the same thing (and i imagine it's not all that terrible) but Out = w < 400 ? float3(0,0,0) : [the second one];

You could do it with a step function but the step function is step = value < 0 ? 0 : 1 so it's the same thing

[tight phoenix]

syntax error, unexpected token '='

[pale python]

hey

I wanna be able to allow players to draw on some texture without changing the original white sheet/background.

how do I add a node texture as an overlay to another node texture ?

[tight phoenix]

Out = w < 400 ? float3(0,0,0) : Out = bump3y(c1 * (x - x1), y1) + bump3y(c2 * (x - x2), y2);

do I need brackets or double == or something?

[karmic hatch]

oh you don't need the second Out =

it's [variable] = [bool] ? [value if true] : [value if false]

[pale python]

anyone with shaders exp ?

[tight phoenix]

that worked great, it no longer floods with blue the more steps I add

[craggy jay]

thank you for your help btw! i figured out how to do it without a script, i'm going to use the sine time found in the time node

[karmic hatch]

Nice :)

Worth noting that you can also do it manually, with time * frequency -> sine, then you can control how fast it goes

[craggy jay]

ye, i'm just taking time and then dividing it by the duration i want, then plugging it into a sine function

[karmic hatch]

Also bunp I made this a while back when you and the other guy were working together; it's mostly physically based (using the thin film phase difference); the one thing that's not physically based is I assumed that red, green, and blue were discrete wavelengths (can be changed in the graph) and that the thickness that each wavelength has irl creates a dropoff following a particular ansatz function I chose (should work in the large limit anyway).

[karmic hatch]

nice

[craggy jay]

awh, damn the time isn't tied to when the object is created

[karmic hatch]

here's the shader on a bubble (for the cube demonstration i made it opaque and unlit)

[tight phoenix]

👀 that looks pretty accurate

[karmic hatch]

The discrete wavelengths mean they do line up again so you get the large-scale waves you can see there but for low thicknesses it seems to work well

[tight phoenix]

compared to what im currently getting, yours looks like those outputs

[tight phoenix]

Oh so like if there are TONS of bands it gradually comes back into focus? that shouldnt be a problem I think

[karmic hatch]

It's probably some minor bug deep inside screwing it up

[karmic hatch]

Indeed

[tight phoenix]

thankfully its not too deep,this is the entire thing

at least on this particular iteration, which is like the 4th completely different method Ive tried to approach this from

[tight phoenix]

Did you post the code that made your result somewhere far up that I can search?

[proper ermine]

Why does my sprite in game not match the preview from my shader?

It has orange line where the head connect to the body and where the ears connect to the head

[karmic hatch]

I posted images of the shader graph, I'll see if I can post the shader graph file itself?

[tight phoenix]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/850966136753356820.gif?size=96&quality=lossless

[karmic hatch]

here we are :)

[lavish plaza]

I'm struggling to debug a compute shader that implements raycasting based on this article (https://www.gamedeveloper.com/programming/gpu-path-tracing-in-unity-part-3). Is there a way to visualize rays in a compute shader? I don't know how to visualize anything in the compute shader aside from putting debug colors on the texture.

Nvm I think I can make an output buffer with the info I want to visualize and draw it from c# since this is a compute shader. I will try that.

[harsh marsh]

Anyone know?

[pale python]

3 hours ago I posted this, I don't think it's too hard but I'm new to shaders in general and especially "Unity graph shader" so that is why I'm struggling with it.

I'd appreciate it if anyone could give me a hint or something on ways to achieve my goal or what to google.

All I'm asking :
Is there is a way to put a Texture2D on top of another Texture2D as an overlay or photoshop layers or is there is any better way to do that?

I'll take a look; the title looks promising , maybe its what I'm looking for, thx in advance ❤️

[pale python]

it was thx!! ❤️ .. yes but not for my problem unfortunately, because it relies on URP High-definition , i'm building a mobile project, I can use hd in there. :S

[lavish plaza]

I might be able to help. What is the effect you are going for? I don't know how to spray decals on using a shader, but if you want to put two textures over the top of one another in a urp shader graph powered material I think you can use a blend node set to overlay.

For things like bullet holes or blobby shadows I just instantiate a plane that has an image on it and place it where the hole or shadow should be.

[pale python]

Thank you, I'll give it a try ❤️ ❤️

[flint bloom]

I'm trying to combine a gpu-based culling system with indirect instanced draws. I wonder if I need to modify the data stored in the indirect argument buffers (e.g. change the number of instancing due to culling), how can I navigate this indirect argument buffer in the compute shader?

From the cpu side, I know I have to offer a GraphicBuffer or ComputeBuffer for the indirect argument. But how do I know where it gets bound to? Thanks!

[static shard]

Hello, why do I get this error while coding shaders?

Invalid subscript "vertex "
I get it at the highlighted line

v2f vert(appdata v) {
    //v.vertex.y += 0.1f * sin(v.vertex.y + _Time.y);
    v.vertex.y += 0.1f;
    
    v2f o;
    o.vertex = UnityObjectToClipPos(v.vertex); //THIS LINE. v.vertex causes the error, why?
    o.uv = TRANFORM_TEX(v.uv, _MainTex);
    return o;
}

this is my struct

struct appdata {
    float4 vertex : POSITION;
    float2 uv : TEXCOORD0;
};

[flint bloom]

i'm not sure but can you modify the input arguments without changing it to "inout or out"?

you prolly can't write to appdata v without declaring it as inout

[static shard]

the code didn't give an error at the previous line

so I think I can

I used "v"

before the error

but, let's give it a try

it gives the same error

[flint bloom]

oops

[static shard]

oh, my bad

[flint bloom]

does it work?

[static shard]

yeah

[flint bloom]

oh nice

[static shard]

another question

how do I start the shader?

I modified vertez position but it doesn't seem to work

even if the code does not give errors

I mean, when I am in the editor, does the shader affect the object or do I have to start the enviroment?

like this

[flint bloom]

did you use any variables related to "_Time"?

[static shard]

it just doesn't do anything

[static shard]

yes

v.vertex.y += 1 * sin(v.vertex.y + _Time.y);

[flint bloom]

try play the game and check the Game window

if you want it to be effective under Scene View, you want to find an option called "Always Refresh" and have it ticked on

should be on the top right of the Scene View tab

[static shard]

there's not

[flint bloom]

i'm not on unity rn, but should be folded under one of these items

[static shard]

found it

but it doesn't still work

[flint bloom]

then prolly problems from elsewhere

[static shard]

okay okay

I will find a way

thank you, William

[flint bloom]

gl ^^

[kind juniper]

You seem to be using the default standard material.

[static shard]

okay so, how can I change that?

[kind juniper]

If you have a custom shader, you need to use a material that uses the shader.

Create a new material, assign it to the object. Select the right shader for the material.

[static shard]

how can I do that?

[kind juniper]

Sorry, you'll have to research that. That's one of the very basic things when working with unity. You need to create a new material asset in the project.

[static shard]

okay

thank you very much

[unique lichen]

Hey there I got a problem with my textures

heres what is happening

[kind juniper]

Please don't ping random people. Just ask your question and someone might answer. I just happened to be online now, but if I weren't, no one would answer you probably(since you pinged me specifically).

[kind juniper]

Also, be more specific. What exactly is the issue?

Is it with the cube? The terrain?

[unique lichen]

The textures will apply to unity cube but not my blender model

[kind juniper]

Did you uv-map your mesh properly? It looks like there's no uv data or it's broken.

[unique lichen]

No I don't think so

Never heard of "uv-map"

[kind juniper]

Well, then you've gotta do that. That's one of the basics of 3d modeling.

That or use a shader that doesn't rely on uvs. Like one using triplanar mapping.

[unique lichen]

Do you know where I could a texture that uses triplanar mapping?

[kind juniper]

It's not a texture. It's a shader. You can create one yourself.

Try googling a bit.

[unique lichen]

Alr thx

SO

So*

I don't know why but the texture works for the Unity cubes and what so. But not my blender model

[kind juniper]

Didn't you read what I said? Your model does not have proper uvs. The default cube does. That's it.

[restive radish]

in real time, is it more efficient to change a shader or the whole material? For reference, that's for trees, so it would only apply to one or two trees at a time.

I wonder if changing shader would just create new materials for those trees, and then it would be better to use some shared material for those trees instead

[amber saffron]

Performance-wise it won't make a difference, but it's more easy to swap a material than a shader, because if the new shader doesn't have the same property names as the old one, you will need to reassign everything by script.
Also, in a build, changing the material from one that is referenced by the script assures you that all needed variants are here, but changing the shader won't.

[restive radish]

Thanks!

[proper ermine]

https://i.gyazo.com/c206b67afaf5f52c500f72bc8bb5ca3a.mp4

Can someone help me understand why this might be occurring on my image?

I thought maybe my alpha is wrong? So I ceiled it but it still does it?

Okay so it only happens where sprites overlap...

[ember sedge]

I've downloaded a water shader graph from the asset store out of inability to write shaders, it looks great but I can't figure out how to convert it to work in World Space.

I am aiming to get the edges of neighbouring ocean plane meshes to match seamlessly, however I just can't comprehend how to convert it to work in World Space - if I simply switch from 'object' to 'world' I get weird distortions, and the entire thing shifts around when moving the camera.

I'll pop in a screenshot of the vertex displacement, if anyone has any ideas would be much appreciated :)

[amber saffron]

• Keep the Position node in object space.
• You want to change the UV input of the "Tiling and Offset" node :
  • Create a new "Position" node, and set this one in World space
  • Swizzle the output to keep "XZ" coordinates, and connect it to the "UV" input of "Tiling and Offset"

[proper ermine]

What causes red distorted colours like that? I assume it means something, just don't know what.. It'd help me fix it if I knew what it was

[ember sedge]

Thanks for the quick response, I'll try that now :)

[amber saffron]

Tried to use saturate node on alpha ? It has negative values ?

[ember sedge]

Swizzle Node seems to crash my shader graph weirdly

[proper ermine]

I will try it, I'm pretty new to this but have noticed that when I put 2 in front of each other it goes translucent

[proper ermine]

Thank you very much, I just tried it and that fixed it ^^

[amber saffron]

Hum ... well, you can manually swizzle, but splitting the position, and connection X & Z in a vector2 node

[paper loom]

hi can someone help me here

I have followed this instructions but still not working https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfolVBo_2-I&t=163s

[amber saffron]

You need to explain us better what is "not working".
Also, the project source is in the video description, might be good to look at it and compare

[paper loom]

sorry sir I'm uploading it now in github 🙂

here's the link

https://github.com/strikeric11/HouseCleaning

if u can't download there here's alternative https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SfL2sS0lf3lYiG_TuJDxpsqZV-dv3jCq/view?usp=sharing

[paper loom]

the not working part is it's not cleaning the dirt and I don't know why

[kind juniper]

Take a screenshot of the shadergraph

[long sand]

Hi, sorry for popping up with a random question but:

UNITY_SETUP_INSTANCE_ID(IN);
           UNITY_SETUP_STEREO_EYE_INDEX_POST_VERTEX(IN);
#if  defined(UNITY_SETUP_INSTANCE_ID)
           int d2 = unity_InstanceID;
            #endif```
why does the code above fail with undeclared identifier 'unity_InstanceID'

what am I missing?

[kind juniper]

Can't see the node names on that screenshot.

[soft harness]

Are IF statements bad?

[kind juniper]

Are you sure there's such a variable and if there is are you including the file that contains it?

[long sand]

unity_InstanceID is a unity defined variable

I have no clue if I am supposed to have it at that point, I am following the examples

[soft harness]

In shaders I mean

[kind juniper]

To a degree. It was mostly true a few GPU generations ago. Like 10-15 years ago.

[soft harness]

Ok so not today

[long sand]

this is the function that unity executes to enable it:

 void UnitySetupInstanceID(uint inputInstanceID)
    {
        #ifdef UNITY_STEREO_INSTANCING_ENABLED
            #if !defined(SHADEROPTIONS_XR_MAX_VIEWS) || SHADEROPTIONS_XR_MAX_VIEWS <= 2
                #if defined(SHADER_API_GLES3)
                    // We must calculate the stereo eye index differently for GLES3
                    // because otherwise,  the unity shader compiler will emit a bitfieldInsert function.
                    // bitfieldInsert requires support for glsl version 400 or later.  Therefore the
                    // generated glsl code will fail to compile on lower end devices.  By changing the
                    // way we calculate the stereo eye index,  we can help the shader compiler to avoid
                    // emitting the bitfieldInsert function and thereby increase the number of devices we
                    // can run stereo instancing on.
                    unity_StereoEyeIndex = round(fmod(inputInstanceID, 2.0));
                    unity_InstanceID = unity_BaseInstanceID + (inputInstanceID >> 1);
                #else
                    // stereo eye index is automatically figured out from the instance ID
                    unity_StereoEyeIndex = inputInstanceID & 0x01;
                    unity_InstanceID = unity_BaseInstanceID + (inputInstanceID >> 1);
                #endif
            #else
                unity_StereoEyeIndex = inputInstanceID % _XRViewCount;
                unity_InstanceID = unity_BaseInstanceID + (inputInstanceID / _XRViewCount);
            #endif
        #else
            unity_InstanceID = inputInstanceID + unity_BaseInstanceID;
        #endif
    }

[kind juniper]

Of course if you want to squeeze every bit of performance, it's still relevant. But sometimes there's just no better alternative.

[kind juniper]

I guess it was supposed to be a local variable, but you forgot to declare it.

[long sand]

I think it all work through unity macros, but you are right I am not sure where it's declared, although i think it's declared as static

which I guess means global?

#if UNITY_ANY_INSTANCING_ENABLED

    // A global instance ID variable that functions can directly access.
    static uint unity_InstanceID;

[kind juniper]

There would be no point in calculating it here, if it was coming from unity.

Aaah, okay

[long sand]

the code I am copy and pasting is all unity stuff

[kind juniper]

Then I guess the define is not enabled

[long sand]

but it is otherwise the compiler wouldn't fail right?

#if  defined(UNITY_SETUP_INSTANCE_ID)
           int d2 = unity_InstanceID;
            #endif

my code is around the define

[soft harness]

Basically what I want is
If uv.y is even, run a performance heavy image effect, if not, don't

Would that be better than running it on every pixel?

[kind juniper]

Hmmm... Let me get to my PC. It's really hard to read it on mobile.

[long sand]

oh wow thanks for the help

[kind juniper]

Hard to say. Best way to tell is test and profile.

It definitely wouldn't be slower.

[soft harness]

That's all I need

[kind juniper]

Try using the same define in your code as unity does.

#if UNITY_ANY_INSTANCING_ENABLED

[long sand]

yes you are right, it's not defined

[long sand]

another question: can I do

material.SetBuffer("_TerrainBlendParams", blendBuffer);
                   Graphics.DrawMeshInstanced(mesh, submeshIndex, material, batch, batch.Length, null,
                       shadowCastingMode, true, layer, Camera.current);

and expect the buffer to be usable inside the sahder?

unfortunately render doc shows me I am not able to bind the buffer

[kind juniper]

Did you declare it properly in the shader?

Logically thinking it should be bound.🤔

[long sand]

yes render doc shows the varialbe in the shader

StructuredBuffer<float4> _TerrainBlendParams;

[kind juniper]

Try Shader.SetGlobalBuffer instead🤔

https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Shader.SetGlobalBuffer.html

[long sand]

thanks I try now

same

[kind juniper]

Hmm

Try using material block then I guess

[long sand]

yeah I did that too 😛

it's all a bit too empirical haha

[kind juniper]

Did it work?

[long sand]

nope

[kind juniper]

Hmm

[long sand]

I tried that before start the chat

I wonder at this point if it's compatible with Graphics.DrawMeshInstanced

but I would be surprised otehrwise

[kind juniper]

Just to make sure, you did create the buffer properly, right?

[kind juniper]

Does it work with regular rendering?

[long sand]

I have seen examples using the same code just with normal gameobject

if it works with that it should work with everything

but I have never seen examples specifically with DrawMeshInstanced

https://forum.unity.com/threads/how-to-pass-a-structured-buffer-in-to-fragment-shader.862216/

[paper loom]

sorry but I dont think I can screenshot it properly

[kind juniper]

Did you try with normal gameobjects though? You could be looking at the wrong place.

[long sand]

no I always used the same code with DrawMeshInstancedIndirect and I cannot use gameobjects for my case but I trust that example works

[kind juniper]

I'm sure you can arrange a small test case with regular gameobjects

[long sand]

what would it prove if it works?

[kind juniper]

If it works, then the issue is indeed with DrawMeshInstanced. Otherwise, it would prove that there's some other issue with the buffer not binding.

[kind juniper]

Can't you use the snipping tool? win + shift + s?

[paper loom]

that is the best I can do

[kind juniper]

What's the reference name of the DirtMask parameter?

[paper loom]

sorry where can I find dat?

[kind juniper]

Select the property and look at the graph inspector

[kind juniper]

And yet in your code you bind it to "DirtTexture"

Btw, you should be getting warning/errors in your console when attempting to bind a texture to a property that does not exist.

[paper loom]

so in the settextture i should put "_Dirtmask"

[paper loom]

I'm afraid it doesn't show any warning or error

[kind juniper]

Weird

[kind juniper]

Yes

[paper loom]

Thank u ur a life saver it works now

I guess I have to study shader graph can u recommend references on where to study?

[kind juniper]

Hmm... It's been a while since I've looked at shader graph tutorials. Just google or search in youtube and pick the one with most views I guess.

[paper loom]

Thank you sir I owe you one

[mortal creek]

Hi! I can't get the Scene Color node on shadergraph to work. I've configured my project as the tutorials suggest. Opaque texture is active on the URP asset and the surface on the shader is set to transparent. All I'm getting is the camera background color as output, not the colors on the render buffer. Any ideas?

[restive radish]

How do you usually pack your channels for complex shaders? Is there any standard? I usually use two textures:

• Color + Alpha
• Normal + Ambient Occlusion + Height

Metallic and Smoothness I leave out since they don't match much the pixel art style on the textures of my meshes.

[mental quest]

Why images with material assigned overlap other UI elements?
https://i.gyazo.com/441da20bb513c99a11b52989c877ffb4.mp4

[tight phoenix]

https://gfycat.com/nippyassuredgrasshopper
Panzer yours works better than my previous four attempts, and is closer to physically accurate to boot.

carpaint dragon test with it

[restive parrot]

can somebody help me make a shader? i want to make a shader that would blackout my scene

[mental quest]

bump

[restive parrot]

.

[thin crater]

Hi, I've got this basic toon shader

The editor writes that error

What does it mean? I've not written code

Tried to compile, errors multiplied:

What could it be? I've never received an error like that... Also restarted editor, it didn't work

[karmic hatch]

:) glad it works

[karmic hatch]

Something is quite wrong; shader graph should not give errors. Did you try to edit the shader code itself (rather than the graph)? Maybe try reinstalling shader graph?

[thin crater]

No, it was a random bug with a gradient property. I removed it, added it again, and it got fixed...

[karmic hatch]

Very strange

[craggy jay]

is there a way to get the sprite color modifier in the shadergraph?

like when you use a sprite renderer, or particle renderer, you can set the color and opacity of the material, but it's applied on top of everything

is there a way to access that color before it's applied?

[knotty juniper]

the particle system and sprite renderer write the color you set / the particle system sets in the Vertex colors of the mesh
you can use the Vertex Color Node to get that data

[craggy jay]

oh okay! is there a way to disable the vertex color multiplication at the end of everything?

i'd like to implement my own vertex color thing

[knotty juniper]

use your own material with your own shader
the shader defines the behavior
if you don't want the default sprite shader don't use it

[craggy jay]

i'm using shadergraph to make my own shader

nvm, i'm just going to use the unlit shader base for shadergraph

works perfectly for what i want

[mental quest]

.

[soft harness]

haha! it works! an incredible increase in performance

[kind juniper]

By not using ifs?

Or by using it?🤔

[soft harness]

by using it

so for context, i wrote a raytracing volumetrics script, but as you can imagine it's quite performance heavy. but i'm also using interlacing, which if you know how that works it means i only need to render half the pixels per frame. so what i did is change the volumetrics script to only run on half the pixels, and that worked!

with literally no comprimise

from 15 to 20 fps

[kind juniper]

I see. interesting to know. I guess the GPU is able to group the threads in such way that fast threads are not delayed by the heavy ones. Reducing the overall processing time.

[dim yoke]

What you mean by blackout in this context?

[toxic flume]

What do you suggest to implement water shader and river in voxel games?
Using a big water texture and tile it, then assign each tile to each voxel?
I have seen some voxel games use one tile texture for each voxel but it is
repetitive and not impressive

[amber saffron]

Use world space coordinates for water texture projection

[west knoll]

Hi, i'm having trouble with normal and alpha channel. I need to have a normal with one mask in the alpha channel but if i set the texture type to normal seems like the alpha channel change.
Now i'm trying to reconstruct the normal map directly in the shader (using shader graph) using the R and G channel for the normal and the alpha for the mask i need and keeping the texture type at Default. But the reconstructed normal is not working properly.
Anyone have experienced the same problem?

[amber saffron]

Import the texture as regular texture, but don't forget to disable sRGB.
In shadergraph, take the RG channel (use the swizzle node), remap from [0;1] to [-1;1] (can also be done with x2 - 1) and pass them to the "normal reconstruct Z" node.

[toxic flume]

yes, voxel indices

[west knoll]

Oh thank you!! You saved me a lot of time. Is there a specific reason to use the swizzle node instead of a vector 2 connected to the texture sampler to the RG channels?

[cosmic prairie]

what do you mean

[restive radish]

swizzle is just a mask from vector4 to vector2 (in fact, any combination).

[restive parrot]

How can i make a blackout shader. I have never used shaders before so I need help. Thanks

[grizzled bolt]

"Blackout"?

[west knoll]

ok, thank you! 😁

[restive parrot]

To blackout everything around me

[grizzled bolt]

It sounds like you have a very specific kind of effect in mind, but that description is not very specific
...Unless you're just looking for advice how to put a black screen in front of the camera

[restive parrot]

something like this, but i have managed this with lighting but i want to manage something like this without a lighting but with shader

@grizzled bolt

to have sort of like nearvision

[grizzled bolt]

Did you look at fog options in environment settings? Might not need shaders at all

[restive parrot]

that works

[sacred patio]

Hey guys, I've been getting back into unity, and I was wondering if there's anything crucial that I might've missed when creating a vertex shader
I did some vertex painting on the wings and the movement isn't working on the mesh, though it shows up in the preview

[kind juniper]

Can you expand the material properties in the inspector?

This

[toxic flume]

I have global voxel index for each voxel in the world, so I can choose the correct water tile for each

[cosmic prairie]

but you don't even need to assign UVs to the water

or are you doing some fancy mesh compression where you only send bytes for vertex coordinates?

[sacred patio]

Oh got it, it was set 0. Rookie mistake
Although it's super buggy, and plays only if I move the windows, is there a reason for it somewhere in the settings?

[kind juniper]

It's because of how the time value updates during editing time.

If you press play, it should work properly

[amber saffron]

Or enable animated materials in the scene view.

[sacred patio]

Awesome, thanks for the help

[toxic flume]

Yes, you are right. I do not need any voxel index data. Only world pos

But it is like an island, a voxel shape Island.
I would like to simulate waves towards that island

In my mind, I should send data like the direction towards that island for each voxel

[dim yoke]

Make sure to enable Always Refresh from Scene view View Options toolbar > Effects: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/ViewModes.html

[mental quest]

Why masking doesn't work on images with materials assigned?
https://i.gyazo.com/441da20bb513c99a11b52989c877ffb4.mp4

[dim yoke]

Have you tried the default UI shader? https://github.com/TwoTailsGames/Unity-Built-in-Shaders/blob/master/DefaultResourcesExtra/UI/UI-Default.shader i think its the UnityGet2DClipping part that does the clipping. Maybe you could modify that shader to do what you want assuming the clipping is supported there

[mental quest]

Well I made custom shader using shadergraph so default UI shader wouldn't make sense. I am not sure how to use Get2DClipping part in shadergraph. Any idea?

[dim yoke]

Shadergraph doesnt support UI shaders sadly. You most likely have to do that using handwritten shaders

[mental quest]

Do they still work in URP/HDRP?

[dim yoke]

I think cg shaders works on urp atleast, dont know about hdrp

[mental quest]

I fixed it by adding this to Pass {}

Stencil
{
    Ref 1
    Comp Equal
}

[dim yoke]

Didnt realize the mask would use stencils, makes sense

[tight phoenix]

@karmic hatch https://www.shadertoy.com/view/NttcRr
I am trying to reimplement your SSS cube a second time. The first time I was not satisfied with the results I got, trying to remake it EXACTLY 1:1, not 'close' not 'similiar', EXACTLY identical.
Its the only way I can be sure I am getting the same results as yours is if its exactly exact, anything less than exactly identical is useless and worthless to me.

A few questions:

• What 'space' are surface vector, sun direction, position in? Are any of them normalized?
  I am having trouble translating your version's color and normal and position and direction values, yours are all based off of a For Loop checking if a ray hits the cube or not, I have an actual cube so I don't need to do that but I can't figure out how to replicate the values the loop would have given me if I had needed to do that

the old implimentation looks nothing like your original implimentation and its full of mistakes, 'close enoughs' and is just completely worthless fucking trash because its not perfect and I have no idea how to fix it

Also if the absorption color is too bright, I get pink errors, which shouldnt be possible ergo there must be a huge mistake here

{
    subsurface = Remap(subsurface, 10., -0.2);
        
    vec3 subColor = 1.2*tanh(exp(-subsurface*ABSORBCOLOR));
    return vec4(subColor, 0)/(1.-0.7*dot(direction, SUN))*0.4;
}```
```    MY CODE
float3 subColor = 1.2*tanh(exp(-Subsurface*AbsorptionColor));
    Out = float4(subColor, 0)/(1.-0.7*dot(ViewDir, SunDir))*0.4;```

Why would this return broken pink? How can I prevent it from returning broken pink? It returns broken pink if the ABSORBCOLOR is too bright. (I remap externally before passing into my own code)

their color is (0.4, 0.6, 0.9), mine is the same, theirs doesnt return purple error, mine does

ergo there must be a difference im not accounting for but i cant find it

starting to get really agitated

going into mental health crsisi because its not perfect and identical despite being a perfect copy paste

taking a break

[mental quest]

Yeah but for some unknown reason this shader works on image component attached to one object but doesn't work on other at same time. Looking what went wrong

[tight phoenix]

replaced SG's remap with Panzer's remap helped, I guess whatever SG remap does is not equivalent to this

im more comfortable with custom nodes now so I am doing more and more in that instead of with nodes, nodes I cant trust the output

[karmic hatch]

Position isn't normalised, I think everything else is. In this case world and object space are the same but I would say object space makes more sense.

The for loop is just for rendering the faces of the cube (finding the nearest face to the camera), you already get the position and normal. AxisA and AxisB can be swapped for the two tangent vectors.

[karmic hatch]

My remap assumes the input goes from -1 to 1 iirc, so it's just SG's remap with the first Vector2 fixed at (-1, 1)

[tight phoenix]

weird that its result was completely different than yours though, like its night and day not the same output

[tight phoenix]

setting everything to object space instead of world space made it ignore the world's light's direction compared to the object

though it did improve the look

[karmic hatch]

I assume you also transformed the light direction from world space to object space

[tight phoenix]

What do you mean by two tangent vectors? Those outputs look nothing like the output of the Tangent node

[tight phoenix]

I didnt, let me try that now

[tight phoenix]

Doing that didnt change anything, spinning the object in scene rotates the point where main light is hitting it

it looks a lot better than the first time I tried to adapt this though so its definitely an improvement

[karmic hatch]

They just need to be perpendicular to the normal and they and the tangent vectors are for a cube

[tight phoenix]

I am not comfortable with making substitutions that I don't understand, its already not identical to yours so the further away it becomes the less I can trust the output to reliably match yours

everything is in object space now but that means if I rotate the mesh, the main light rotates, which is not how it should work

[karmic hatch]

MainLightDirection transforms as a direction not a position

[tight phoenix]

changed, no difference

I swapped it because it wasnt working with direction

view direction is still in world space, does that need to be object as well?

[karmic hatch]

Yes everything in object space

[tight phoenix]

why am i putting everything in object space, couldnt it all be in world space if the end result is the same?

[karmic hatch]

It could, but object space also makes it independent of scaling and whatnot

[tight phoenix]

Good point, I want that 🤔

putting view in object space seems to have made it 1:1 to your implimentation

Im not fully clear on how it differs from the first time I did this, other than that I used custom nodes instead of rebuilding the math as nodes, gif in 1 sec

[tight phoenix]

https://gfycat.com/quarterlyimaginaryemperorpenguin

the red one is the first attempt

seems to be working a lot better

[high hemlock]

I'm developing a voxel game and have begun working on a greedy-mesh algorithm to decrease the number of vertices used in each chunk mesh. Since fewer vertices exist, now the UVs are being stretched. Since varying portions of the chunk mesh have different levels of UV-stretching, I can't simply have the tile texture repeat x-amount of times across the board. From what I've read, my only solution to this is to create the shader myself.

Here's essentially what I want the end product to result in:

In addition, the texture map has over 10,000 unique texture tiles on it. In some way, I have to tell the shader to use its given UV coordinates, and then repeat the said texture based on- I imagine world space? Thanks.

[karmic hatch]

Awesome :)

[tight phoenix]

I will play with the values in hopes of getting it looking closer to this, but first shower and lunch time, I might be back if I get stuck again, thank you as always for the help

[full salmon]

I've got this rectangle hugging the terrain with raycasts - is there any way I can make sure it gets drawn on top of the ground layer?

[kind juniper]

increase the frequency of raycasts/vertices. Ideally you want vertices precisely on top of that hill.

[pearl frigate]

Hoping someone can help me. I am using a nice grass shader with my procedurral terrain. It all looked just fine a second ago, i chose to update my networking setup and boom. It's like Unity is not rendering the material properly or something.

Here is a picture of it now, and also for reference how it looked before. I changed nothing regarding the grass...

I am really hoping there is just some known way to get Unity to get its shit together with this? 😂

Once again, i changed NOTHING regarding the grass. Only updated my networking system. So this behaviour seems odd..

I have tried restarting btw. Still no luck.

[distant pollen]

Ayo, quick question as I'm new to this stuff..
How do I make it so that my sprite won't so stretched up?

it should be looking like this

[tight phoenix]

you might have to set it to transparent here, and then plug in the Alpha

[distant pollen]

worked like a charm

thanks!

[tight phoenix]

Im running into the same roadblock I ran into the first time I tried to adapt this

the front face is burning white and the backside barely transmits anything, no matter what values are provided

there is no value for 'density' or 'less transmission' that isnt also 'burning wash out the front face'

am I just using it wrong?

is there a step you are doing that im not that somehow changes this?

[tight phoenix]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/497874081329184799/1017467196064157767/unknown.png

I cant get the bellow look

something is critically different that is completely altering the appearance

it was like this before and its still like this now and I cant figure out to fix it

getting agitated again

why wont it just @#$@#^@&ing work

https://www.shadertoy.com/view/NttcRr

why wont it be this, what am I missing

[pearl frigate]

bump for this ^^

[lavish plaza]

I'm writing a shader that is supposed to edit a rendertexture before another rendertexture/material is using for its main texture. Can someone help me troubleshoot why my red pixel at (1,1) will not show up?

The writing shader:

            #pragma vertex vert
            #pragma fragment frag
            // make fog work
            #pragma multi_compile_fog
            
            #pragma target 5.0

            #include "UnityCG.cginc"

            struct appdata
            {
                float4 vertex : POSITION;
                float2 uv : TEXCOORD0;
            };

            struct v2f
            {
                float2 uv : TEXCOORD0;
                UNITY_FOG_COORDS(1)
                float4 vertex : SV_POSITION;
            };

            sampler2D _MainTex;
            float4 _MainTex_ST;

            float4 _Color;
            
            RWTexture2D<uint2> _ShadowTex : register(u1);
            RWTexture2D<uint2> _ShadowTex_ST;
            
            v2f vert (appdata v)
            {
                v2f o;
                o.vertex = UnityObjectToClipPos(v.vertex);
                o.uv = TRANSFORM_TEX(v.uv, _MainTex);
                UNITY_TRANSFER_FOG(o,o.vertex);
                                
                return o;
            }

            fixed4 frag (v2f i) : SV_Target
            {
                _ShadowTex[uint2(1,1)] = float4(1, 0, 0, 1); // red pixel at 1,1 does not appear
                
                // sample the texture
                fixed4 col = tex2D(_MainTex, i.uv);
                col = col * _Color;
                // apply fog
                UNITY_APPLY_FOG(i.fogCoord, col);
                return col;
            }

[distant pollen]

Hey, I'm trying to change that Vector4 in my code, but I get this error, any ideas why?

Here's the code btw:

private IEnumerator OutlineFadeIn()
{
    for (; material.GetVector("OutlineRGBA") != new Vector4(1f, 1f, 1f, 1f);)
    {
        material.SetVector("OutlineRGBA", material.GetVector("OutlineRGBA") + new Vector4(0.1f, 0.1f, 0.1f, 0.1f));
        yield return new WaitForSeconds(0.01f);
    }
    yield return null;
}

oh.

I might know why

[tight phoenix]

What is the formula for the length of a cube of known size's intersecting ray from surface normal out its back?

like if a ray from the viewpoint hits the surface normal, what is the length between it and passing out the back of the cube, represented as a color on that surface

expected output is nearly black at the edges, and oversaturated white at the poles if its rotated 45 degrees, since that would be the longest possible length through a cube corner to bottom opposite corner

this is the distance between the dead center point of the cube to its surface

I need the distance between the opposite face of the cube to its surface 🤔

am I correct in my assumption that if this was representing the distance between the cube front and cube back, it would NOT be a circle?

can anyone confirm that such a formula even exists?
a cube of known size, what is the length of a ray intersection from any two points on its surface?

am I just wasting my time googling for it?

why is this so hard to find?