archived-shaders

[astral spade]

I should just delete my project?

[tame topaz]

@astral spade Enough already. Contact the developer of the asset or delete your project, either way, stop this spam.

And I'll remind you, you've been warned for spam before. Next is a mute.

[amber saffron]

I'm surprised that a popular asset like this has a shader compilation error, like I said before, the best is probably to contact the asset developer, it it's duty to fix those issues.

[astral spade]

It has lots of them.

[amber saffron]

Those are warnings, not compilation errors, they don't prevent the shaders to work

[astral spade]

So creating a thread is not considered spam?

[astral spade]

I know.

[tame topaz]

Being annoying is considered spam, and will be moderated.

[astral spade]

Being annoying should be considered being annoying imo.

[tame topaz]

Thankfully we're not here for your opinion. Keep this up and you'll be moderated. We don't need to go over this. Contact the developer of the asset and move on please.

[amber saffron]

I’ll tell you in more detail I generate

[tacit parcel]

fresnel? a dot product of viewdir and mesh normal assigned in to the alpha should yield a result similar to glow

[dry onyx]

Hey I just made a shader graph for 2d and i'm having some trouble with the whole player sprite "glowing" and not just the emission map. Anyone have ideas on what the problem could be?

[wicked niche]

No. It turns out just a translucent strange tube

[wicked niche]

Like this

I want to get this from sahader

From this

To this

[quaint coyote]

Hello everyone, can someone please tell me how I can render an object using second or third pass in a shader using a scriptable render pass?

[quaint coyote]

@vocal narwhal can you point me to someone who can shed some light on the same?

[vocal narwhal]

no

[quaint coyote]

oh okay, thanks. I thought a moderator might be knowing. anyways thanks 😉

I think you might be the moderator for the community and not this channel.

[tacit parcel]

Like this?
that red streak is actually a cylinder with inverted fresnel applied to alpha.
the viewdir is using from inverted camera's forward instead of cameraPos - vertexPos since I'd like the cylinder looks the same regardless the position against camera

[quaint coyote]

Okay I got the pass working. but it only renders with the LightMode "UniversalForwardOnly"

[wicked niche]

yes, only i have a slightly curved shape

[wicked niche]

could you show how it's done with a shader?

[tacit parcel]

fixed4 col = tex2D(_MainTex, i.uv) * _Color;
float3 viewDir = mul((float3x3)unity_CameraToWorld, float3(0, 0, -1));
col.a = pow(dot(viewDir, i.normal), 2);//fresnel strength

[wicked niche]

is it in the vertex function?

[tacit parcel]

in the fragment

[wicked niche]

How is the normal calculated in this case?

[tacit parcel]

Ah right, the normal is actually in worldspace
o.normal = UnityObjectToWorldNormal(v.normal);

that goes to the vert function

I should name it worldNormal instead

[wicked niche]

what type is this in v2f struct?

[tacit parcel]

NORMAL
float3 normal : NORMAL;

[tacit parcel]

🤔
show full shader? or maybe the v2f structure?

[wicked niche]

it is not working

[tacit parcel]

did you add 'alpha' to the pragma?
Also might need to add blend mode
Blend SrcAlpha OneMinusSrcAlpha

[wicked niche]

Is there any way to make it flatter?

[tacit parcel]

🤔 it should be flat, I mean, there's no lighting calculation there

but it still looks solid, maybe need more polygon

or using baked normal instead

[wary horizon]

#include "Packages/com.unity.render-pipelines.universal/ShaderLibrary/Core.hlsl" trying to convert a URP shader.hlsl to HDRP, whats the HDRP include instead of this?

[quaint coyote]

instead of pipelines.universal, you have to do pipelines.high-definition

also check the packages folder in your project window. you'd get a clue

Okay, guys, I've tried enough but unable to set the shader properties during a draw call while using a different pass

How to I make sure to get the same result by not using an override material but using a different shader pass? Please help!

[regal stag]

Should have the ExecuteCommandBuffer line after the SetGlobalX functions

[quaint coyote]

Omg 😳

Thank you @regal stag

[restive radish]

simple question: those two do the absolute same, right?

or alternatively, this:

[regal stag]

Should be equivalent yes, though depends what the W component of that Vector4 is set to. (0 for directions/vectors, 1 for positions)

[restive radish]

yeah, it's for vectors

thanks

[hazy sage]

Hey everyone! Anyone knows how you call this type of shader that modifies the way a light shines on an object? I wanted to make a lightning working kinda like that, but I don't know what to look for online, or how it is even called

[frigid vine]

cell shading / toon shading

[hazy sage]

Thank you!

[frigid vine]

Guys I need help from someone with some really good knowledge in this subject. Im fresh as I just started reading about shaders like 2 weeks ago and just implemented my first one (with strong help from online tutorials). It worked great until I pushed changes and used my new shader to beautify scene my friends were working on, and then it broke somehow. Im trying to debbug and fix it for like 2 days now, with help from people much more experienced in shaders than me, but we got literally nowhere so problem seems to be a bit complex.
When i was implementing and testing my shader i made a demo scene with up to 7 lights as I recall and it was all great.
Now when I used this shader in an actuall scene things go crazy with only 2 lights (not counting directional/main). For some reason whenever both of these lights are on the screen, EVERY object influenced by one of these lights goes dead black. If I disable one of them, or simply move camera in such position that only one light is on the screen, everything is fine.
Every setting in camera, URP, lighting etc. I already tested, for 2 days straight i was clicking and checking/unchecking like a monkey every option that could affect that, with no result, so the problem might be in implementation itself, but I really understand only basics, so I cant really search for the problem in details :/

some warning appeared on shader that were absent before, but I dont know if they mean something in case of this problem

ask me anything, code, ss of shader graph, material setting, ill share anything if someone will be willing to help

I really need to get this working, in a month from now ill have to return it to the university as it is my diploma work, well.. not the visual part of it, but its important to me to show it in a good light anyway

[cobalt totem]

I'm using the built-in render pipeline with shader graph and was wondering if it's possible to access the grab pass texture? Or if there is some other way of accessing the pixels "behind" the object the shader is on?

[humble robin]

would rendering many 3d models (around 10-12) at a low resolution (something like 96x96) be performance intensive?

[signal pollen]

Shader "Unlit/ToonShader2"
{
    Properties
    {
        _Albedo("Albedo", Color) = (1,1,1,1)
        _Shades("Shades", Range(1,20)) = 3
        _InkColor("InkColor", Color) = (0,0,0,0)
        _InkSize("InkSize", float) = 1.0
    }
     SubShader
    {
        Tags { "RenderType" = "Opaque" }
        LOD 100

        Pass
        {
            Cull Front
            CGPROGRAM
            #pragma vertex vert
            #pragma fragment frag


            #include "UnityCG.cginc"

            struct appdata
            {
                float4 vertex : POSITION;
                float3 normal : NORMAL;
            };

            struct v2f
            {
                float4 vertex : SV_POSITION;
            };

            float4 _InkColor;
            float _InkSize;

            v2f vert(appdata v)
            {
                v2f o;
                o.vertex = UnityObjectToClipPos(v.vertex + _InkSize * v.normal);
                return o;
            }

            fixed4 frag(v2f i) : SV_Target
            {

                return _InkColor;
            }
            ENDCG
        }


        Pass
        {
            CGPROGRAM
            #pragma vertex vert
            #pragma fragment frag


            #include "UnityCG.cginc"

            struct appdata
            {
                float4 vertex : POSITION;
                float3 normal : NORMAL;
            };

            struct v2f
            {
                float4 vertex : SV_POSITION;
                float3 worldNormal : TEXCOORD0;
            };

            float4 _Albedo;

            float _Shades;

            v2f vert(appdata v)
            {
                v2f o;
                o.vertex = UnityObjectToClipPos(v.vertex);
                o.worldNormal = UnityObjectToWorldNormal(v.normal);
                return o;
            }

            fixed4 frag(v2f i) : SV_Target
            {
                float cosineAngle = dot(normalize(i.worldNormal), normalize(_WorldSpaceLightPos0.xyz));
                cosineAngle = max(cosineAngle, 0.0);

                cosineAngle = floor(cosineAngle * _Shades) / _Shades;

                return _Albedo * cosineAngle;
            }
            ENDCG
        }
    }

        FallBack "VertexLit"
}
``` hello this is my code however the outline part is not working and i can't figure out why. The toon shader part does work

basically if i enable the outline part then it just goes all over my object

this is how it looks with outline commented

[shadow locust]

depends on the model, the shader, the number of them, the material settings, and the target hardware

[humble robin]

so if i only render 1 model that is low poly, with unlit shader and target pc hardware, around 15 times per frame it shouldn't be very performance intensive right?

[hazy sage]

Hey everyone! Does anyone know how I could make a shader like this one, a toon shader, but with point lights? I tried googling it and didn't find anything :/

[scarlet pulsar]

Is it possible to use Scene Depth Node in shader graph with Legacy render pipeline? May be i should enable getting depth from camera?

[knotty juniper]

if not sure what renderpipline a node is supported in you can see that in the node documentation
https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.shadergraph@6.9/manual/Scene-Depth-Node.html

[scarlet pulsar]

problem i don't know where to check or enable depth buffer in Built-in Render Pipeline

[knotty juniper]

the node will not work with the build in pupline

[regal stag]

For BiRP you'd set Camera.depthTextureMode. Can probably do it in Start() method of a MonoBehaviour.
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Camera-depthTextureMode.html

Whether that will make the Scene Depth node work though, IDK. I don't work in BiRP.

But if not, should still be able to create a global texture property in the blackboard with the _CameraDepthTexture reference & sample it (with Screen Position as uv input). And use Custom Function with Linear01Depth/LinearEyeDepth functions to replicate the mode.

[dense crown]

not too good with shadergraph so bear with me but how would I make this shader slowly scroll down like scanning lines?

[shadow locust]

add to the y coordinate of the uv input to that checkerboard

either with a parameter, or from the time node

[grand jolt]

is there a way to have fog appear underwater using shadergraph?

not post processing

like being able to see it under the surface with the shader

without having to enter

for 2D

[hollow wolf]

hi, i following shader intersetion tutorial, it works very well in scene editor, but when i change to game it become like this

on scene mode :

is it because i use scene position node?

[hollow wolf]

nvm, forget to turn the depth on

[dense crown]

how would i add some noise or distortion affect to the lines

[lean lotus]

What does a unlit shader need to get rendered into the deffered depth buffer?

[tranquil cipher]

I guys, I'm trying to make a super simple sss shader.
That is just using normal dot light dir to determine :
front to the light : no sss, back to the light : has sss

My problem is not the back, but when the light is left side, sss on

the calculation is that simple, how to I offset it to get the desired result ?

[tranquil cipher]

It's not as bad if using dot normal light dir
but still I'm open to more suggestion to improve this

best I can come up with

[tranquil cipher]

my boar now have sss fur

now must go to blender to separate the material ID to match the skin with the fur.

[quaint coyote]

@tranquil cipher what is the desired result you're looking at? Here's a document I'd like to share with you. Also do read about wrap lighting and half lambert terms.
https://technology.riotgames.com/news/valorant-shaders-and-gameplay-clarity

[tranquil cipher]

I just want sss appear in the back of the face toward light
I solved it in sub-sequence screenshot

thanks for the article

[quaint coyote]

Great! Whats that fur? some planes/quads?

[tranquil cipher]

yes that's quad based fur generated by the tool Fluffy groom

made my own shader for it to get more custom look

[quaint coyote]

thats nice! thanks for sharing the info 🙂

[cobalt grove]

anyone know how i can get similar visual/post processing as seen in this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lohu-9gO2E0&t=8s

[quaint coyote]

you mean the colors?

[vocal narwhal]

don't cross-post.

[quaint coyote]

what is cross-post?

[quaint coyote]

ohh! thanks 🙂
Damn, so many jargons 😄

[inland ibex]

Hey guys.

So, I am trying to create a circular vignette effect using Unity's Shader Graph for a specific texture, but I am having difficulty figuring it out. I have searched online for resources and tutorials, but haven't been able to find anything that is helpful. I am wondering if anyone here might be able to provide guidance or point me in the direction of some good resources. I appreciate any assistance you can offer.

I think it should be a relatively simple task, but I'm having trouble figuring it out on my own. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[quaint coyote]

hey! there's something I had done earlier that yielded a circular vignette shader. I can share the video with you. But you will have to convert that logic to shadergraph.

It creates a vignette like this:

[inland ibex]

I was able to get something similar working, but it's an oval shape instead of a circular one. Additionally, I'm having trouble making the white color completely transparent. I don't want to apply any white to my 2D texture, I just want to achieve the vignette effect.

[quaint coyote]

yeah its oval because of the screen resolution. You will have to tweak that. Also its not using any textures. Its simple maths with uvs

[vocal narwhal]

black and white is just 0 and 1, you just multiply it with your color to darken it

[quaint coyote]

or maybe use lerp as well 🙂

[inland ibex]

Hmm...

[tranquil cipher]

yea can lerp to anything other than black

user color input

[quaint coyote]

I mean, the reference values and not screen resolution itself so that the ratio is 1:1 and it draws a radius that remains the same which draws it as a circle

[cobalt grove]

Srry just wasn’t sure which channel to put it in

[quaint coyote]

some code:

[cobalt grove]

Yeah just to kinda try and replicate how that looks in my own urp project

Like the colors/skybox/post processing and lighting

[quaint coyote]

This might not be the right answer, but urp has post-process volumes and all with color adjustments, LUT etc.

[cobalt grove]

Ok

Thx I’ll try and mess around with that when I get back on tomorrow

[inland ibex]

Got it working after all, and it's circular now. 🙂

Here's the graph in case it's of any use to anyone.

[mossy crest]

Hello, anyone having issues when installing UTS (Unity Toon Shader) on fresh 3D URP project (2021.3.16f1)

[tacit parcel]

🤔 I'm actually not sure if making vignette using post-process is more effective than UI overlay, I mean, with all the distance calculations done every frame compared to a texture lookup...

[wicked niche]

how can i render a 3d object completely flat first, and only after that apply alpha fading to 0 smooth on the sides at the edges? Now if you apply an alpha change, the object looks like 3d. I don't really like it, I want to achieve a glow effect by duplicating the mesh, zooming in a little and fading the edges

[quaint coyote]

yeah had the same thoughts, with the distance etc. nodes being used 😐

[grizzled bolt]

A custom post process effect is also an option
Might save overdraw if it's rendered in the same go with other post processing effects

[wicked niche]

Good afternoon, could you please explain a bit what is going on here? I will be very grateful)

[quaint coyote]

rim light or fresnel calculation based on view direction. 1: calculate object space view direction, 2: get the fresnel (dot normal, viewdir) 3: pow it up for a crisp line 4: 1.0-fresnel is to get the fresnel value which is away from user/camera

what are you trying to do @wicked niche

[gray panther]

This is a glass material which is intended to look like this

How can I make it look like glass?

[amber saffron]

• transparency
• reflections
• refraction

[sacred stratus]

I coppied a tesselation shader and Im wondering if there a way you can use gpu instancing for meshes?

[amber saffron]

Same as you would do it for non-tesselation shader

[sacred stratus]

okay then what is gpu instancing because if I enable it I get this error

[amber saffron]

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/gpu-instancing-shader.html

[sacred stratus]

#pragma surface surf Lambert vertex:dispNone tessellate:tessEdge tessphong:_Phong nolightmap
Can someone explain to me what this line does?

[knotty juniper]

as far as i understand it:
#pragma //sets some defines following it
surface // uses the unity surface shader functions this does a lot of stuff in the background
surf Lambert // use the Lambert shading model for the lighting
vertex:dispNone // use for the vertex shader the function called dispNone
tessellate:tessEdge // use for the tesselation the function called tessEdge
tessphong:_Phong // use for the tesselation shading the function _Phong
nolightmap // does not incude support for lightmap
most options are interpreted by the unity suface shader compiler

[sacred stratus]

so #pragma is like defining a function?

[amber saffron]

No, it gives directives to the compiler

[shadow locust]

Here's a list of what various pragma commands do:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/SL-PragmaDirectives.html

the most important thing is telling the compiler what kind of shader program is coming up

e.g. is it a vertex shader? fragment shader? surface shader?

[sacred stratus]

so inside here will be like 6 different #pragmas for vertex, fragment etc

[shadow locust]

A typical basic shader will just have vertex and fragment

Also surface acts as both vertex and fragment

[sacred stratus]

what about tesselation?

[shadow locust]

i have no idea what that is

above my paygrade

but I know you don't need it to write a typical shader

[sacred stratus]

Tesselation seesm to be some way of taking a mesh or just a single triangle and subdivide it, Im like one day old to shaders so I have no idea how to implement it but the idea is to upload a mesh to the gpu, then subdivide it and then move the vertices however you need them and all of that inside the gpu

[shadow locust]

well yeah i know what the concept of tesselation is I just don't know how it works in a shader

[sacred stratus]

what is a shader program ?

[grand jolt]

I don't know how to make a shader that's like cutout but with the edges being drawn like those smooth clean edges you get in transparent mode.

I'd like to draw a texture that has alpha channels as is in a shader, however, when suing transparent mode, the texture would slightly reveal things behind it which makes sense, and when using cutout mode, the areas with alpha channels are being drawn in a different way than what the texture looks like.

how would one have those 2 features being: clean transparent-like alpha channels and the solidity of a solid colour altogether in a shader?

here's what the texture looks like on its own:

with cutout:

and finally transparent:

[wicked niche]

when i move my background a bit higher it starts to draw on top of my translucent mesh, how could i fix this?

[gray panther]

The window is supposed to look like this, but for some reason in Unity it is cutted, though I fixed it in Blender.

[mint mango]

does anyone know how to use a video texture to just past the video over the 3d object rather than wrapping it with the UV? i'm trying to avoid these seams and just have the video applied as if it were a green screen

[gray panther]

Fixed, and for those who will have similar problems, I recommend this video as an answer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iV9wnvpQ1U

[restive radish]

I am trying to add a bump map to create some rim light effect on a billboard sprite. In short, that should add some light to the edges when sprite is between light and camera (and thus, shadowed).

How can I do that in a way that doesn't do the opposite, adding shadows to the edges when sprite is illuminated normally (light from the direction of camera)

[eager vigil]

How can I change the white from this shader to a transparent color? I want the brown color to stay and will change by a value and the white should be transparent. Thanks.

[frigid vine]

I have literally no knowladge about it but I would guess you just plug it into alpha or smth... but then you will need to change render queue for this shader and something with z write/read (from what ive heard)

[south acorn]

Anyone know if there'd be a way to make wobbly arms not to dissimilar to the game called Nock in VR?

Not asking for a shader just wondering if its even possible or if I should just add a ton of bones to the arm

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx3e4Zrc3I2swim1-UTBOYxTG3qR50Hagg

Just a quick example of it

[static meteor]

Im trying to figure out how to mirror my texture upwards and combine both into a taller texture, it seems possible but is it really?

[tacit parcel]

Not sure with shadergraph, but the logic would be
alpha = step(color, 0.999);

there should be a step node for shadergraph

[static meteor]

I've blocked out close to what im looking for, but the resulting uv isn't combined so offsetting the texture will offset both halves instead of scrolling as one tile

[rare charm]

How would I go about making a vertex shader that can displace the top surface like this but without separating the seam at the edge? I have the displacement part done, I just don't know how to keep it from literally coming apart at the seams

[quaint coyote]

A quick thought that comes to my mind is if you can paint the displacement map black where the seams are, it wont displace the the edges

[quaint coyote]

mirror texture upwards and merge into 1 texture? I've mostly dealt with POT(power of 2) textures. So maybe, you can get a 512x512 texture with half of the upper part empty. Then just invert the texture (like you've done above). Then you can add both the textures. Don't lerp.

[quaint coyote]

just invert the color mask node and connect it into the alpha of the fragment node. You can also add an offset to it.

[quaint coyote]

Guys, isnt it possible to render different meshes with GPU instancing? Even after switching on dynamic batching?

This opengl document says its possible though: https://www.khronos.org/opengl/wiki/Vertex_Rendering#Instancing

[shadow locust]

this is specifically talking about the same mesh not different meshes

[sacred stratus]

Is it possible to use a function from shader B in shader A
Example:
Shader B has function _C with input float2(x,y) and the properties a,b,c and I want to use the function in shader A with just entering _C(x,y);

[strange sonnet]

You can define your function in an .hlsl file and #include it in both shaders

[quaint coyote]

Hmm I see… that’s not possible then

Even with dynamic batching, it won’t be possible because then logical grouping won’t be possible here.

[quaint coyote]

Yeah it .cginc if using the BIRP

[sacred stratus]

Okay but how do you make an hlsl file for unity, because all I can create are .shader files

[quaint coyote]

Hehe, just create a new file and rename the extension

[shadow locust]

just create it

like any other file

it's just text

[sacred stratus]

and now what do I just paste in my function?

[strange sonnet]

yes

[strange sonnet]

ah, you're using CG, then it must be another extension

1. Create a .cginc file and paste your function there
2. Add #include {PATH TO .CGINC FILE} after #pragma target 5.0

[sacred stratus]

This is my cginc file

and that s my shader

the including is not working apperatly

[strange sonnet]

I would advise against trying to implement tesselation yourself if you don't have in-depth knowledge of graphic programming.

HDRP is shipped with shaders that support tesselation, and the only place you'll ever want to use it anyway is in high fidelity rendering

[sacred stratus]

and maybe for procedual generation

right?

[strange sonnet]

It can be used for procedural generation to some extent, but in the vast majority of cases you'll want to do it on the CPU through C# instead for several reasons:

1. You probably don't want to redo generation from scratch every frame several times (shaders are stateless, they by their nature cannot store any data for future use)
2. You probably want your generated meshes to have collision
3. Unity's C# API for creating meshes is much, much more robust than anything you can even theorethically achieve with shaders

[quaint coyote]

Just fyi, this guy explains tessellation very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63ufydgBcIk

also check out the documentation on Microsoft's website (related to DirectX). But if you're beginning coding shaders now. I'd advise getting a bit familiar with the basics first 😉

[karmic hatch]

yes i think you could do it with a shader by playing with the vertex position

[karmic hatch]

put (1 - Color Mask) into alpha

[quaint coyote]

yeah right, looks like a simple sinewave

[karmic hatch]

Maybe multiplied by a parabola so the end-points are fixed to where they're supposed to be

[quaint coyote]

I am still surprised how its Christmas and new year still lots of people here 😄

[sacred stratus]

One you change the vertex position, suddently you need a new normal, how do you calculate that?

[narrow iron]

can you use ComputeShader.SetInt() to set a uint?

[thick schooner]

i need help whenever i make a new unity 3d project i get this

Shader error in 'Skybox/Procedural': Internal error communicating with the shader compiler process. Please report a bug including this shader and the editor log.

Why is my sky just purple

[quaint coyote]

I think yea, that’s how you set the value.

[narrow iron]

reason i ask is because theres no explicit funtion to set a uint. theres setint, setfloat etc but nothing like setuint. at least in the unity docs.

[quaint coyote]

Yeah set int will do it. It’s just unsigned integer so setint will do it

[strange sonnet]

because 'Skybox/Procedural' shader contains an error, the log should contain more information

if I have to guess, there's something wrong with graphics settings in your project

[sacred stratus]

how much more calculation power does 3d noise use up?

[dim yoke]

Depends, you can check the implementation to see how much math they do behind the scenes

[quaint coyote]

A lot if you’re thinking to use it on mobile devices

[hot lagoon]

Why here the texture is moving, but when i apply it to an object it won't?

[knotty juniper]

in game or scene view that its not moving?

[hot lagoon]

both

[knotty juniper]

does it work with a minimal scroll setup?
just one texture to the output no public variables or other stuff

the screenshot is kind of hard to read

the numbers are very small

[hot lagoon]

minimal scroll setup?

[knotty juniper]

a minimal test example

[hot lagoon]

well, it draws to the object

and that's it

it draws to the object

[knotty juniper]

so the speed is determind by the vertex color and the scroll speed multiplicator

what happens if you replace the vertex color with just the value 1 (just for testing)

[hot lagoon]

lemme try

[hot lagoon]

it moves, but only when i'm in the game tab and the game is running, if i go to the scene tab while the game is running, it's still

[teal breach]

Is there a way in shaderlab to determine if a shader is being rendered in the Inspector preview window?

(text or shadergraph)

[knotty juniper]

for the scene view you can enable this to force unity to allways update the view

[hot lagoon]

thx

that solved all XD

[sacred stratus]

my shader looks like this.

[hot lagoon]

the sun

maybe the emission?

[sacred stratus]

okay I will give some details, this is a tesselation shader so my idea was that it might be based on missing normals or sth

Im really new to shaders that s why Im asking for advice and it would be great if someone could tell me what I need to fix

[onyx talon]

Is there anyone who knows how to recalculate normal in vertex fragment according to the vertex displacement?

[sacred stratus]

same question but I found this https://gamedevbill.com/shader-graph-normal-calculation/

[buoyant oriole]

Does anyone know how to convert a lwrp frag shader to hdrp? (also i know literally nothing about shaders)

this is the shader /\

for context its from a 6 year old tutorial, from a comment from 3 years ago so im not completely sure if it works for ana up to date version of lwrp since my computer doesnt have enough storage to test that (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjH-UoyaTgs&lc=UgyKyDSNQhK7f2AJ1MZ4AaABAg) (highlighted comment)

i have tried to convert it to a shader graph but had problems since the Texture2DArray requires a Texture2DArray<float4> which i couldn't find for the shader graph so im just trying to convert the frag shader instead

[analog karma]

why did that got deleted

[drowsy crest]

i figured it out

[analog karma]

oh ok

[calm wave]

im really new to unity and i cant figure this out

close up

far away

i have adjusted the lods but that did nothing

[tiny quarry]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/981479024599633950/1055686596516659310/hairtest.gif

Hi, trying to make, a hair shader using dither in shader graph, how do i reduce this noise?

i have this plugged into alpha clip threshold

i tried to use blue noise instead of the defualt dither to try and reduce it but its not much improvement

[pliant storm]

hello! i'm not very experienced in shaders or shader graph, but how could i achieve an effect like blender's cavity (image 1) in unity?

[onyx talon]

I already try this before. Maybe I am doing some thing, it just not works for me.

The normal vector it turns out is same as the normal vector that not bean modified.

[sacred stratus]

what is your specific use case, Im having the same issue but I have math class now so I'll ask my teeacher

[onyx talon]

Recalculate the normal vector for the water

I know the cross product of ddx and ddy can solve the problem. However, derivative is not working in vertex fragment.

[sacred stratus]

I wrote this code, but it kinda doesn t work, is there a way to debug the shaders so I can find the issue easily

[onyx talon]

you can use render debugger and switch to Normal on common material properties.

[sacred stratus]

the issue actually seems to be in this at line 56, where the vertex coordinates don t exist, do you know how I can enter the vertex coordinates into the fragment shader?

[onyx talon]

You don't have a variable that's named vertex in your input structure.

[sacred stratus]

my current formular does this, maybe that s helpfull to you but Im not too sure xd

[sacred stratus]

now it looks like this

[pseudo narwhal]

curvature cannot be efficiently calculated in realtime, you'd typically bake a curvature texture map or use a approximation techniques via post-processing (edge detection, partial derivatives, maybe others)

[onyx talon]

Actually, you can use (delta n / delta p) to calculate curvature. Only one line of code can solve the problem

Where n is normal vector and p is position

[onyx talon]

Same as you. Totally wrong result.

[buoyant oriole]

any tips on learning hdrp fragment shaders?

im just gonna see if i can convert my shader myself

[mild ether]

Quick question. Applying Graffiti images to my ingame 3d walls. Best performance with sprite textures or decals?

[echo thistle]

Hey all! I'm working on my first shader, which I'm hoping to use to give a grass texture a sense of movement in my isometric game. Note that I'm not trying to move individual grass sprites, but rather give a single flat texture the sense of moving due to the wind.

I'm blending some voronoi noise with the UV, but doing that results in the texture being warped at the corners. How should I go about doing this to avoid the distortion?

[knotty juniper]

what is your value for cell density?
i cant get the result you get

[echo thistle]

It was set at 100. I just changed it to 10 and the distortion isn't as obvious, but it still distorts more in the middle than at the corners. And, a value of 10 distorts creates too dramatic of distortion.

[knotty juniper]

you have to tone down the distortion if you want a effect like wind interactions

[echo thistle]

Hmmm alright, I'll try playing around with it. If you have any suggestions on how to best do that, I'd appreciate it.

My first thought is to somehow blur the output of the voronoi effect so it's not so drastic.

[knotty juniper]

i have the cell density at about 0.01 to get ok results

[amber saffron]

Don't blend the voronoi with the UVs .
Add it.
And to controll the intensity, multiply the voronoi by a value

[amber saffron]

Note that by doing this, it's the borders of the cells that will appear "moving". You might want to do a "one minus" on the voronoi output

[echo thistle]

@amber saffron You're right, adding them did the trick. Managed to add a scrolling noise map to it to simulate larger waves of wind, with voronoi being useful to add smaller more localized movement. Thank you very much for your help!

[sacred stratus]

did you fix the normals yet?

[sacred stratus]

this is my current result

Im not sure if this is perfect but it seems better than nothing

this is where I calculate the height, and then the normals

worldgen is whatever function, that you use to generate whaterver you want to ligth,
Pos is the position of whatever vertex you want to calculate the normal
The Radius is the checking radius around the pos point, and o is just a parameter for the world gen

worldGen(posn,o) is multiplied by 15 because I multiplied the height of the vertices on the y level by that in the first screenshot

[hollow talon]

is it possible to make a shader for 2D urp, for 3d meshes that uses vertex normals to simulate what we do with normal maps with standard sprites?

[onyx talon]

Thanks, I will try it.

[willow pike]

Anyone know of a good solution for handling blood splatters in Unity? Thought I'd give the new(ish) URP Decal Projector a shot but quickly discovered some problems

[tame topaz]

I'm pretty sure the decals got an update in the recent 2022 version that supports layers to fix that problem specifically?

[willow pike]

Oh interesting! We're on 2021 LTS still. Waiting on the LTS version. Hmm I wonder if there are any workarounds in the meantime...

[tame topaz]

Not sure myself, sorry

[willow pike]

Np, ty!

[polar granite]

Hi Everyone, I have a shader that is not build correctly (works fine in editor) since its applied in runtime. I contacted the creator of this shader and he said:
Open the shader and find all "shader_feature", "shader_feature_local" "shader_feature_fragment", shader_feature_vertex" to "mutil_compile"

Does this mean
shader_feature_local_vertex
to
mutil_compile

or

shader_feature_local_vertex
to
mutil_compile_local_vertex

[compact pine]

Hello. Why would this visual issue happen when I use mobile/diffuse shader, but not when I use default-sprite shader?

[grizzled bolt]

mobile/diffuse doesn't implement alpha transparency

[cobalt totem]

Any ideas on how I can blend the top of the tornado funnel in with the clouds behind it? The clouds are rendered by a separate asset:

I tried decreasing the alpha value as the y axis increased in object space using the smoothstep function, but when the camera enters the volume the top 80% of the funnel is cut off

[near crater]

Hello!

Just a quick question, how do I get the world matrix in shader graph?
The 4x3 World Matrix to be exact.

Anyone know?

Unless the world Matrix is also 4x4 like the view project matrix.

Would I need to do Model to World transformation?

[buoyant oriole]

So ive got 2 questions,
First off, how do i use fixed variables in a custom shader(fixed3,4) that uses hlsl since i cant find that anywhere.
Also, how do i use UNITY_DECLARE_TEX2DARRAY in hlsl aswell?
Thank you!

[young rampart]

Is there any way to add your own node types to shader graph?

[grizzled bolt]

"Custom Function" node

[young rampart]

I mean natively

It looks like it should be easy to add new nodes but everything is private

[grizzled bolt]

https://github.com/RemyUnity/sg-node-library
https://github.com/JimmyCushnie/Noisy-Nodes
I think these implement some?

[strange sonnet]

Without directly modyfing unity packages, only through subgraphs, sadly.

[onyx talon]

You can make your own shader graph node by using c#

AbstractMaterialNode, IGeneratesBodyCode

attribute [SRPFilter] and [Title]

You can check out the source code of srp to learn how to write your own node.

[quaint coyote]

I am writing a custom RP and writing custom shadows for directional light

Can someone please take a look at this: https://forum.unity.com/threads/directional-light-view-matrix-computation.1313001/#post-8306979

Requesting help with creating directional shadows

[quaint coyote]

just some code and SS. This casts the shadow of capsule on the capsule itself.

View Matrix:

sorry to spam 😦

[valid badger]

Heya, I have this variable in a shader

[Toggle(_HASTEXTUREOVERLAY_ON)] _HasTextureOverlay ("HasTextureOverlay", Float) = 0

I'm trying to set it's value at runtime for a certain material, but I can't get it working.

material.SetFloat("_HasTextureOverlay", 1);

[quaint coyote]

Have you defined it with a #pragma in the pass?

#pragma shader_feature …

[young rampart]

if you are setting it by code you need to set the flag "_HASTEXTUREOVERLAY_ON" manually

[onyx talon]

I just found out that unity has the normal recalculation method built-in. It's in the render-pipeline-core package and its name is NormalSurfaceGradient.hlsl

[willow pike]

So I'm trying to create a subgraph node in Shader Graph to make a flipbook material pick a random texture based on object position. In this case it's a blood splatter material that changes the mask of the shape of the splatter. Problem is I'm getting this strange issue that seems to be some kind of floating point problem where the object position is unstable and the material can flicker even when stationary. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Maybe I'm going about this the wrong way.

[humble robin]

how can i create an outline shader that doesn't use vertices. I tried this method where i check if the difference of depth betwen 2 pixels are too big make it a outline (i made the color 0-1 to test) and place it on a blit renderer feature here is my fragment shader code:

           void frag(v2f i, out float4 nearestColor: COLOR) {
            {
                float depth, nearestDepth, selfDepth;
                float2 ppos;
                float raw_depth;
                float2 pShift = float2(1, 1);
                nearestDepth = 1;
                float2 rawDepth = tex2D(_CameraDepthTexture, i.scrPos.xy);
                nearestColor = 0;
                selfDepth = Linear01Depth(rawDepth.r, _ZBufferParams);
                bool alreadyOutlined = false;
                [unroll]
                for (int u = -1; u <= 1; u++)
                {
                    [unroll]
                    for (int v = -1; v <= 1; v++)
                    {
                        float shiftx = u * pShift.x;
                        float shifty = v * pShift.y;
                        float2 ppos = i.scrPos.xy + float2(shiftx, shifty);
                  raw_depth = tex2D(_CameraDepthTexture, ppos);
                  depth = Linear01Depth(raw_depth.r, _ZBufferParams);
                  bool drawOutline = abs(depth-selfDepth)>0 && !alreadyOutlined;
                  // this line makes it draw everything white
                  //alreadyOutlined = drawOutline ? true : alreadyOutlined; 
                  // draw black when outline, draw white when not outline
                  nearestColor = drawOutline ? 0 : 1;
               }}}

i have no idea why this doesn't work and i am a beginner. The issue is when alreadyOutlined exists, it doesn't draw anything at all and when i make the >0 in bool drawOutline bigger than 0, it makes everything white. when i make it 0 it just draws the meshes, and doesn't create an outline. I have no idea why is it that way. Can someone help me?

[young rampart]

The shader graph allows the srp assemblies to see it's internals, but I was able to work around that with an assembly definition reference, works great

[quaint coyote]

Can Anyone help me fix the view matrix for directional light shadows ?

[eager vigil]

Why is it that if I apply my shader to a mesh in looses a lot of it's geometry?

[dire hinge]

I have an Issue what seems to be a shader issue:
Both objects in the scene have the same material applied on them.
Both have the exact same settings, the only difference is that on the left it is a default Sphere, and the right is a custom procedural generated mesh.

What could be the issue with the texture/Material/shader?

[young rampart]

The geometry is still there, it's just all the same colour, the second image is using segmented normals and lighting to create a square effect

[young rampart]

Look at your UVs in the inspector (double click your generated mesh and then change the bottom section to uv layout)

[eager vigil]

Ok...but how can I make my shader (first image) to look like my second?

[young rampart]

Calculate the lighting using the mesh normals

[eager vigil]

Ok thanks.

[dire hinge]

Guessing this is not good

[young rampart]

hmm, that doesn't look bad because it's using all the texture space, but there could be verts bunched up

can you try the uv checkerboard?

wait your mesh doesn't have UVs

[dire hinge]

Indeed i think that is the problem

[young rampart]

I dunno where that grid is coming from

[dire hinge]

not perfect yet but atleast it renders the texture now:

thanks for the tip, that was the solution

[young rampart]

look up "triplanar" texturing

[dire hinge]

Yep, familiar with it

thanks a lot for your help

rebuilding the uv vertices was the solution

[sacred stratus]

Thanks

[reef owl]

how can I get the orthographic view direction of a camera in world space?

[pliant grove]

anyone knows why the shader preview isn't the same as in the game view

[sacred stratus]

where do you put functions in compute shaders

[swift loom]

I put them above csmain I think @sacred stratus

[sacred stratus]

ty works

how do I assign a value to "_S"

[shadow locust]

with =

[sacred stratus]

no I mean I wanted to set the struct from the c# script so something simmilar to
computeShader.SetFloat("_S",_sstructure)

[shadow locust]

You can't. You can set 4 individual floats, or your can set a buffer

[sacred stratus]

okay

[sacred stratus]

Is there a way I can pass a function as an argument in hlsl?

[near crater]

So I have an error I wrote out in a comment in my code, but I am not sure how to fix it, thoughts?

// Unexpected token out. Expected one of: typedef const void inline uniform nointerpolation extern shared static volatile row_major column_major struct or a user-defined type.
        out float2 oT0 : TEXCOORD;

Am I missing something in order to define this and pass it along to the surface shader?

[static meteor]

im still on the hunt on doing a simple sphere imposter, most sources end up being perspective scaling tho, this is the closest i've got to orthographic/ latitude longitude scaling, but clearly i need the other quarters of the circle

cant say i remember enough math voodoo

[onyx talon]

@sacred stratus Finally, I have the right normal

[hard star]

Is there an API documentation for the Built-In Unity-Shader API?
Like:
I've copied the following variable definition: float4x4 unity_ProjectorClip; - and it seems to be some variable defined by unity during runtime which gives information about the projector clipping plane(s).
I cannot find any documentation regarding this variable though. Am i maybe looking at the wrong place?

[sacred stratus]

what is all that stuff on the screen, the terrain looks great

[onyx talon]

It's water. Currently I'm in direct diffuse light debug mode

[sacred stratus]

there s a debug mode for shaders?

[onyx talon]

Yes

[sacred stratus]

do you have an idea as of why there are black spots?

[onyx talon]

Is this water?

[sacred stratus]

nah idk what this is

it s sellular noise in combination with perlin noise

[onyx talon]

this is because of how unity calculate shadow

[sacred stratus]

so what do I do my own shaddows, or is there some kind of smooth shaddowing?

[onyx talon]

the face on the opposite side of light will be black

[sacred stratus]

,im in urp

yes but it s like really ugly I don t think that this is intentional

[onyx talon]

If you don't want it to be competently black, you need to add environment light or bake gi

since urp does not support ibl

[sacred stratus]

okay, I just found out it can t be due to shaddows

when I turn shadow intensity down, it doesn t go away

[meager pelican]

Self shadowing then, use a min ambient light value in your n dot l calc

[pliant grove]

Hello there
can anyone help me with this issue? I've been having it for a while but couldn't figure out what could resolve it.

When I set the shader graph to Sprite Lit, the preview of the material works as intended.

When I set the shader graph to Sprite Unlit, the preview doesn't match the material view anymore

I'd assume it has something to do with Sprite Unlit not handling the alpha channel correctly. Does anyone know why this happens?

[karmic hatch]

iirc Inigo Quilez uses 1/2 (dot(normal, up) + 1) to modulate the ambient light so it's mostly coming from above

(corresponds to a uniformly lit sky)

[hearty obsidian]

I have the following code in a custom node, yet the output is a constant 0 no matter what the global value is set to. Any idea where I could be going wrong?

#ifndef GRAYSCALE_INCLUDED
#define GRAYSCALE_INCLUDED

float4 _Grayscale;

void GetGrayscale_float(out float Grayscale)
{
    Grayscale = _Grayscale;

}
#endif

If unclear, I'm trying to get a global var inside of a subgraph. I don't want to expose it as a normal property and then manually hook it from the main graph, since I'll be using that subgraph across a lot of shaders

[regal stag]

Looks good to me. How are you setting it?

[hearty obsidian]

@regal stag

print(Shader.GetGlobalFloat("_Grayscale"));```

prints 1 as intended

[regal stag]

You're using SetGlobalFloat but float4 in the shader. Should probably use SetGlobalVector or change to float. That might be why it doesn't get set properly.

[hearty obsidian]

Oh wow, huge oversight from me

Thank you, been at this longer than I care to admit @regal stag

[mighty moon]

Hey guys, is anyone able to help with my shader? I use this shadergraph for my background shader, when my texture is 16x16, it works perfectly but when I change the texture to 256x256 it gets super small, would I need to scale up the texture in the shader? If so, how? I tried putting a float into my tiling & offset's tiling but that didn't work

[hearty obsidian]

all fixed on my end

[karmic hatch]

The reason it's smaller is because you're sticking 4x as many pixels in the same space. Put a float property into the Tiling input on the Tiling and Offset node, and then set that value to 1/4 what it was if you switch to a 4x larger texture

Actually no that wouldn't work

You're using the world position to sample the texture but setting the tiling to zero makes the tiling and offset node entirely redundant

just remove it

Split the xy components of world position into a float2 and then divide those by 4 for the 256x256 texture (add a multiply node and feed a float property into the other side, then set it manually)

[mighty moon]

Cheers

Did this, then set multipleof16 to 16 since the image is 256

I could probably calculate it for me actually

Awesome yeah, did it like this

[grizzled bolt]

@mighty moon is it a sprite shader?

[mighty moon]

Yes

[grizzled bolt]

I'm quite sure the sprite renderer is supposed to handle the tiling and offset for sprite shaders

[mighty moon]

My shader works so idm

[static meteor]

the last part of my shader is pixelating it after the distortion, which i have with the standard uv->multiply->round->divide, then masking it into a circle,

but my circular mask has revealed that the pixelation isnt resulting in an accurate, circle like in my screenshot (the white section of the sprite ends abruptly and the unmasked pixels bleed on the edge)

using round vs floor vs ceiling fixes neither, right, or left in the calculation

[peak dagger]

using urp, how can I render specific layers rendered by a camera with a certain shader.

[grizzled bolt]

Render Objects feature allows you to render specific objects with shader overrides I think

[peak dagger]

Thanks! I`ll look into those.

[narrow iron]

what's the right way to load a compute shader in a c# script?

[karmic hatch]

Can you just make the circle slightly smaller? Or make the area of the texture you shouldn't see the same color as the border so a couple pixels further in or out won't make it look different?

[gray panther]

For which texture slot in unity is the roughness map?

[vocal narwhal]

Unity uses smoothness, which is inverted roughness. You can see which source it's using for smoothness in that dropdown.

Alternatively you can use another shader like the autodesk one

[buoyant oriole]

so ive got a question that i cant find anything online for,
how do you add shadow support for a custom shader using CGPROGRAM in URP?
LIGHTING_COORDS, TRANSFER_VERTEX_TO_FRAGMENT, LIGHT_ATTENTUATION in v2f, vertex, fragment respectively doesnt seem to work so is there another way or a way that UniversalForward uses?

[grand jolt]

Hello guys

I just got back to unity after 2 years

but how do I add my shader to my sphere

[regal stag]

URP shaders should use HLSLPROGRAM so they can include the URP ShaderLibrary files (instead of UnityCG.cginc). You'd then have access to shadow functions like the ones found here : https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/Graphics/blob/master/Packages/com.unity.render-pipelines.universal/ShaderLibrary/Shadows.hlsl
It's usually easier to use Shader Graph though.

[grand jolt]

I just created my shaper graph

[buoyant oriole]

is it possible to do it with cgprogram though? i dont want to rewrite my shader for hlsl and ive got some texture things that dont work with shader graph

[regal stag]

Create a Material that uses that shader. Then assign it to the Materials list under the Mesh Renderer component.

[regal stag]

Not really. I suppose you could try copying some of the functions from there.
But assuming it's a vert/frag shader (not a surface shader), it shouldn't be too difficult to convert, then you could just use the ShaderLibrary functions that URP provides.

[buoyant oriole]

alright well i may aswell give it a shot and since its in hlsl it should work in hdrp aswell right?
well thanks 👍

[regal stag]

No, URP and HDRP shaders are different

[buoyant oriole]

well ive have a look into that some time into the future

thank you though

[buoyant oriole]

just wondering, how do you use the fixed type in hlsl? i keep on getting the error:
unrecognized identifier 'fixed4'

also, anyone know the equivalent to this in hlsl aswell?
unrecognized identifier 'UNITY_DECLARE_TEX2DARRAY'

[simple violet]

Isnt text mesh pro a cg shader but still works in urp

[regal stag]

You'd use half or float instead of fixed.
The URP equivalent should be TEXTURE2D_ARRAY(name)
I've also got a article which goes over some basics : https://www.cyanilux.com/tutorials/urp-shader-code/
At the very least, the summary and templates at the end might help

[buoyant oriole]

you are a legend

thank you

[regal stag]

Unlit vert/frag shaders can still function in other pipelines yes.
(Though they wouldn't support the SRP Batcher)

[buoyant oriole]

this is i swear the only and best documentation for urp shaders
thank you so much for this

[buoyant oriole]

i dont want to ask for help again but im going to ask for help again
so ive got a weird issue with my shadows where ill get this type of thing (attached image) wherever the camera moves.
I was just wondering if anyone has either had this issue before, or if there is a way for an object to not cast shadows onto itself
thanks 🙂

[tacit parcel]

Not sure if I could see the problem

wherever the camera moves
maybe you should post a video

||it looks like a nice ink like effect btw||

[buoyant oriole]

Here is a video of the error and the shader itself

[tacit parcel]

I was just wondering if anyone has either had this issue before, or if there is a way for an object to not cast shadows onto itself
thanks 🙂
iirc, there is an option to make an object doesnt receive or cast shadow. But I'm not sure if there is any (easy) way to disable self-shadowing.
But for your terrain, maybe you can just set so it doesnt cast shadow.

That said, iirc on skyrim, I can "disable" self-shadowing by adjusting shadow bias, maybe it can be applied in unity too...

[buoyant oriole]

alright thanks

[buoyant oriole]

ive actually found the problem
it seems to have something to do with my rendering settings and it being the radius where shadows are being rendered at a higher resolution
i cant seem to fix it though might have to mess with the shadow cascades

[dire hinge]

Shader.Find("HDRP/lit") doesn't seem to find the shader, what is the correct way of finding it?

[karmic hatch]

Might be something else but I'm pretty sure it's capitalised (so "HDRP/Lit")

[peak dagger]

Is there any way I can incorporate fading between materials with render objects.

[dire hinge]

Thanks, that was actually it...

[shadow locust]

#🏃┃animation

[peak dagger]

Oh sorry, I forgot to look at the channels.

[dire hinge]

Say I have a very rough texture of a rock, Is it possible to blend a resource texture into it? If so, how would you go about it? And is there a resource to read/watch how to. I have no clue on what the terminology is regarding shaders.

With resource texture I mean Iron, copper, etc kinda resources

[dense rune]

Got this script from a tutorial, am I supposed to make it a .hlsl script or a .shader script?
.hlsl correct me if I'm wrong

Getting this weird ERROR

[normal valley]

is this where i ask about normal/height/AO maps?

[karmic hatch]

you could lerp between your rock texture and your resource texture based on the latter's alpha

[grizzled bolt]

If you're developing shaders, then yes
Otherwise #🔀┃art-asset-workflow or one of the render pipeline specific channels might be a better fit

[normal valley]

Thank you 👍

[simple pagoda]

Is there a name for this type of effect? I am trying to find a tutorial or asset store product that can help me make this kind of burn in-out effect for a game I am making.

I found the name! It's a dissolve shader!

[glad coral]

You guys reckon mesh deformation (using a 2D mesh in a UI canvas) would be more or less efficient than changing pixels of a texture? I'm still trying to find the best solution to drawing an audio waveform like this.

I think its possible to do mesh deformation without requiring any if-statements in the compute shader, but I don't know if it is with the pixel drawing metohd

but I don't know the cost of either

[simple pagoda]

I am trying to make a dissove shader, but it is entirely MAGENTA

please help

[regal stag]

https://www.cyanilux.com/faq/#sg-magenta

[simple pagoda]

Is there a way to stop these edges from appearing? Could I use the real world coordinates as a 3d input for the noise instead of the UV?

Right down the center separates the two sides

Also can I set default values so the preview isn't completely black with all values zero?

[karmic hatch]

yep use the world coordinates (though you'd need 3D noise, accept distortion, or instead use triplanar mapping with a noise texture)

[dire hinge]

Thank you, gonna give it a try

[simple pagoda]

I have a material that works as a mesh renderer but I need it to work as a skinned mesh renderer. Is there any way to achieve this? The box is surrounding the skinned mesh renderer with the same mesh and renderer as displayed on the right

[shadow locust]

There wouldn't be any difference in the material. If it's the same mesh the material will work just fine. The only thing that's different about the skinned renderer is vertex displacement

[mental torrent]

Hi people! Is there an alternative to ShaderLab usable with URP?

I am experienced and have written tons of GLSL shaders. I'm just looking for a way to avoid learning ShaderLab 😁

[meager pelican]

You're kicking against the goads.
Besides, URP is HLSL.
There's not much to shaderlab. It's just a bit of syntax/organization around the parameters, shader passes, etc. The vert/frag/etc. functions are pretty standard. The engine has some "magic names" for variables, but meh.

Learning ShaderLab-ish syntax is the way to go, IMHO. Unity uses ShaderLab. Period. You have to work WITH the engine. Otherwise, write your own and do all the state/context management yourself. (Oy!) You can always write your own engine or work directly with, say, the direct3D api or Vulkan.

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/SL-Reference.html

[mental torrent]

What about Shader Graph

https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.shadergraph@14.0/manual/index.html

[hollow wolf]

is there a way to make sine time only play once?

[hollow wolf]

nvm, i use loop on fixed update and set value for vector 1 and put it on "time" clamp max value

[past bear]

so is there anyway to make your game assest render from both side in unity and not just one side

[dim yoke]

Yes, Cull Off command

[past bear]

how do you do that

[dim yoke]

Define that in your shader code, if you dont want to make shaders yourself, you gotta find asset that does that for you

[past bear]

man

[dim yoke]

Yea?

[past bear]

but if its my own how could i do that then

[past bear]

got it in the store it had two sided sharder pack

[dim yoke]

The docs page has examples about it https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/SL-Cull.html. Same works with vertex/fragment and surface shaders. Shader grapj also has double sided toggle in it

[past bear]

i got it works prefect

[mellow wasp]

Quick question. I am testing some things for a 2D game, but I am stuck on something. How do I make it so the sprites affected by light in game?

[dim yoke]

Are you making the sprite shader yourself? If this is only about setting up 2d renderer in the editor, #archived-urp would be better channel

[mellow wasp]

Oh alright

[dense rune]

Got this error for this script I don't know what to do 😐

[pliant field]

So i am making PBR shader for URP roughness is invert smothness right ?

I tried to invert roughness to make smoothness but i am getting specular on right i used metallic smothness map from substance on left i used custom shader to make PBR

[regal stag]

Seems to be a strange mix between a surface shader as you have the #pragma surface .. line - not sure why you'd have that in a post processing shader.
But it's also missing a Pass & HLSLPROGRAM?

Pass {
HLSLPROGRAM
#pragma vertex VertDefault
#pragma fragment Frag
ENDHLSL
}

[dense rune]

thank you

[regal stag]

As it's a post process shader this might also be useful, https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.postprocessing@2.1/manual/Writing-Custom-Effects.html

[dense rune]

It's supposed to draw outlines around objects, but it doesn't...

Another obvious mistake I made?

*first time I use shaders XD

[knotty juniper]

is this texture just used for smoothness / roughness or something else too?

[pliant field]

it was my bad i forgot to uncheck sRGB it is fixed .

[sacred stratus]

how do you dispatch a computeshader from a background/new Thread?

[humble robin]

            void CheckOutline(v2f i, float shiftx, float shifty, float4 currentNearestColor, float selfDepth, float currentNearestRawDepth, float nearestDepth, out float4 nearestColor, out float nearestRawDepth)
            { 
          // do stuff
            }

     // in frag
     
        CheckOutline(i, -1, 0, nearestColor, selfDepth, nearestRawDepth, nearestDepth, out nearestColor, out nearestRawDepth); // line 73

how can i make this function output 2 values? I am getting errors when i use out

its my first time using a function in shader code so i don't even know if it is possible or not

[heavy stirrup]

how do I get a compute shader's workgroup (not thread id)?

[sacred stratus]

what s a workgroup?

[heavy stirrup]

unity calls it threadGroup

it's the group the threads your dispatching belongs to

[sacred stratus]

you mean like the
[8,8,1] thing?

[heavy stirrup]

sort of, those threads, xyz, belong to a group

each group will have 8 x 8 x 1 threads

[sacred stratus]

yes in that case, but I thought you wanted to read the numbers in the []

[heavy stirrup]

nah i think unity passes that into your compute shader as uint3 id

[sacred stratus]

, okay so what was your question again?

[heavy stirrup]

my question was if you wanted to dispatch 2 groups of 8 x 8 x 1 threads for example

how do you know which group your thread is in

[sacred stratus]

isn t this for what kernels are made for?

[heavy stirrup]

no that refers to which function your threads will run in your CS

[sacred stratus]

so you want to dispatch the same computeshader twice?

[karmic hatch]

It should have either x or y >= 8

id.x or id.y

Though the id should be all you need

If it decides to run it in some weird order the id still tells you where in the image/buffer you are whereas the group might be something weird

And a compute shaders results should be independent of the order over which the ids are looped, ideally

[heavy stirrup]

nah i got it @karmic hatch

it's the SV_GroupID

[elfin patio]

Hi guys, I'm trying to animate UI elements with a shader using position of x and y but the texture gets alot of "aliasing" even with no displacement movement, how can I keep smooth edges?
EDIT: NVM forgot to link alpha channel of the sample texture 😅

[elfin patio]

Anybody knows why alpha is not working (shows as black) for UI image? Working in Unity 2020 but not in 2021 Sprite Unlit shadergraph

[regal stag]

Shader graph doesn't really support UI yet. (It especially doesn't work well when a Canvas is using Screenspace-Overlay mode at least)
Might be better to switch to a vert/frag code shader, can use the UI-Default shader as a template. https://github.com/TwoTailsGames/Unity-Built-in-Shaders/blob/master/DefaultResourcesExtra/UI/UI-Default.shader

[quasi tundra]

am new into shader i have stupid question
i created a shader that mix colors and output the color
now i wanna get the mixed color results from c# script
i know i can do mixing colors inside c# alone but i have my reasons

[twilit crescent]

how would i go about creating a grass shader that works with procedurally generated terrain? any specific tutorials that cover it

[real totem]

Hello everyone, sorry for the inconvenience, could someone please explain to me why this is happening?
Shader error in 'Unlit/CircleAuraShader': undeclared identifier '_Color' at line 34 (on d3d11)

Version: Unity 2021.3.1f1 URP

Code:

Shader "Unlit/CircleAuraShader"
{
    Properties
    {
        _Color ("Color", Color) = (1,1,1,1)
        _Time ("Time", Float) = 0
    }

    SubShader
    {
        Tags { "RenderType"="Opaque" }

        Pass
        {
            CGPROGRAM
            #pragma vertex vert
            #pragma fragment frag

            struct appdata
            {
                float4 vertex : POSITION;
            };

            struct v2f
            {
                float4 vertex : SV_POSITION;
                float4 color : COLOR;
            };

            v2f vert (appdata v)
            {
                v2f o;
                o.vertex = UnityObjectToClipPos(v.vertex);
                o.color = _Color;
                return o;
            }

            fixed4 frag (v2f i) : SV_Target
            {
                fixed4 c = i.color;
                c.r = sin(_Time + i.color.r / 2) / 2 + 0.5;
                c.g = sin(_Time + i.color.g / 2) / 2 + 0.5;
                c.b = sin(_Time + i.color.b / 2) / 2 + 0.5;
                return c;
            }
            ENDCG
        }
    }
}

[heavy stirrup]

you need to declare float4 _Color in a cbuffer in your pass

[real totem]

It works. Thank you very much

[peak dagger]

I have a material for an invisibility effect and want to make a smooth transition from the normal materials of the player to the invisibility material. How can I do this in unity?

[swift loom]

Why do I get this error:

Shader error in 'NewComputeShader': cannot use casts on l-values at kernel CSMain at NewComputeShader.compute(1018) (on d3d11)

When setting a boolean to false in my compute shader??

it's literally not doing anything other than setting the value of the bool using bool X = false;

[shadow locust]

you'd have to show the code

[karmic hatch]

did you do something like bool(variable) = something or (bool)variable = something?

[swift loom]

No I have a bool X; declared at the top and then I just do X = false; in the code. There's nothing else.

This works

not this

I just switched it to an int but

still found it strange

[grand jolt]

Hello

Im having an issue with my shader

As you can see from the clip above, the UV is split in 2

not too sure whats going on

Its supposed to do this

[karmic hatch]

There's a seam in the UVs, because you can't map a square (UVs) onto a sphere without a seam somewhere

You just need to find a value for how twisty it can be that makes it line up

@grand jolt

[humble robin]

how can i write on depth buffer in a fragment shader?

[mental torrent]

As far as I know it's not a good idea, performance wise, at least for some backends

[humble robin]

i need it for pixelizing

can't use my outline shader because of it

[mental torrent]

@humble robin check out this https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50659949/hlsl-modify-depth-in-pixel-shader

[humble robin]

thanks

[maiden sapphire]

I'm using 2D URP and I'm trying to make a material that can make this square glow. I've followed a tutorial to make a shader to do it, but it's not working. my camera has post-processing enabled, HDR is enabled, but it just won't glow

here's the shader for the material

no matter what color I change the material in the inspector, the color of the square doesn't change either

[maiden sapphire]

I've since fixed my issue. all I needed was to add a global volume with a bloom override and threshold set fairly high above 1, and with the addition of the high intensity HDR color on my rectangle, allowed it to glow while everything else remained un-glow

[grand jolt]

Not sure where to ask but, why is a circle made from line renderer WAY cheaper than a circle png sprite I made?

[shadow locust]

define "cheaper"?

[grand jolt]

Causes a lot less lag. It's like the LineRenderer circle wasn't even adding any load to the game's rendering compared to sprite even though they looks almost the same

[quaint coyote]

Applying a color to a mesh is definitely cheaper because you save on the texture reads. So in the fragment shader, for each fragment, you don’t need to fetch the color from the texture.

But, a texture shouldn’t lag your whole gameplay.

So do check the resolution and compression. Ofcourse 2k+ textures will cause issues.

[shadow locust]

How did you measure this?

[grand jolt]

I have a mapPanning script, then feel which takes more of my patience :> , when I drag the screen

[shadow locust]

Have you used the profiler? What does that panning script have to do with sprites and linerenderer?

[grand jolt]

The panning script works per frame, and it would be noticeable if the map is panning slow (without the use of profiler)

[shadow locust]

What you're saying makes no sense sorry

a single LineRenderer or SpriteRenderer isn't going to have any noticeable effect on performance in any case

[grand jolt]

Ye sorry

[grand jolt]

I have 1000 of them

then i pan the map left and right

[knotty juniper]

at that scale it might be a option to make one script that handels all of them

[sleek kite]

Any tips as to why my spriterenderer's aren't being batched?

Each one is a separate batch in the frame debugger

(they are all in an atlas)

According to the frame debugger the texture being drawn is also the atlas texture

Ah, there's a Batch cause field, I'll see if I can get it to work with that 👍

[sleek kite]

I've not done much work with the new scriptable pipelines, what's the fastest way to draw many sprites with some material properties changed in URP?

Is there an "easy" way to get them to batch nicely or am I better off with ditching the SpriteRenderer and combining stuff myself

[real perch]

Hello, I'm trying to use the RenderDoc tool to debug my shaders, however when I try to debug my HLSL source the button is grayed out with the text "Source debugging unavailable", I've already included the "#pragma enable_d3d11_debug_symbols" directive in my shader as per the unity docs.

OS: Windows 10
Unity version: 2021.3.14f1
RenderDoc v1.24

[sleek kite]

Are there any performance considerations when using large textures that aren't "square"?
e.g. instead of 4096*4096, using 256*65536?

Nevermind, unity won't even let me create the texture

[twin valve]

as someone who is very new to shaders. can someone explain how I can take a shader I made in shader graph and use it in another project. whenever i try to do this. the project tells me the pipeline does not match. whenever I set the pipline up in the old project. all my textures turn purple minus the material i created.

[shadow locust]

You just need to be using whatever pipeline the shader was created for

If it was created for URP, it only works in URP for example

[twin valve]

ok. so i guess i have quite literally no idea what im doing. how would I even know what my old project is using. where would I look

the material I made is using URP

but the old project. isnt.

I checked the pipeline. it has none. so when I add one to it it breaks everything

[shadow locust]

You just look at the target in the graph inspector

[twin valve]

yours has additional settings it would seem

[simple violet]

thats not the graph inspector

maybe you have to upgrade your shader graph package

[sleek kite]

If I pass a Color32 as a vertex color, how can I convert the float value back to the exact same byte value in the shader?

[low lichen]

Multiplying them by 255 and flooring it should work

[sleek kite]

Will the precision be high enough if the value is half?

I basically need to pass a ushort to my shader via the vertex properties, not sure what the best way to do that though while avoiding precision issues

[low lichen]

You could pack 4 bytes into a single int/uint and unpack them in shader, but it sounds more expensive than multiplying and flooring. Is there any reason you can't define the COLOR input as float4? Worried about performance?

[sleek kite]

I'm not sure if I'm just being stupid but I seem to be having precision issues with float as well.

Renderer.color = new Color(remap.RemapIndex / (float)ushort.MaxValue, 0, 0, 0);

surfaceData.albedo = _RemapTex.Sample(sampler_RemapTex, float2(surfaceData.albedo.r, input.color.r * 65535 / 255));

hits the incorrect texel

(the texture is 256 high)

Dividing by 255 and multiplying by 255 in the shader hits the correct one

[low lichen]

If the texture is only 256 pixels high, why are you trying to pass a ushort value instead of a byte?

[sleek kite]

It might be bigger

I can store 65535 "unique" 256x1 textures in a 4096x4096 texture

which is the maximum I'm targeting

The texture ID is the ushort

[low lichen]

I don't see why you need to do any modification in the shader. You're using Sample, so it expects a normalized UV and the color you're passing has already been normalized

Dividing by 255 and then multiplying by 255 cancels out

[sleek kite]

My bad, I misspoke. Using only 255 as the "maximum" and not doing anything to the value works

[sleek kite]

Can I define the COLOR property as something other than float and half? e.g. int?

[low lichen]

I don't think so. But you should be able to interpret the float as an integer, with asuint

That's assuming the color data isn't being modified at all before it reaches the shader, which I'm not certain of

[sleek kite]

I'd assume it's being modified since the renderer property is Color meaning it casts the Color32 to floats immediately

[low lichen]

Then you should avoid using Color32. There are some ways to reinterpret cast between types in C#, either with unsafe or some helper method.

[sleek kite]

I think you mean unchecked?

[low lichen]

No, that's just to avoid overflow checks

[sleek kite]

Oh, you mean just casting the type without any checks

UnsafeUtility.As?

[low lichen]

Yes

It's possible Unity might do automatic gamma correction on vertex colors, but you could also use one of the eight UV channels.

[sleek kite]

Something else I'm still not 100% sure on before I even do this: I'm trying to move some material property block data to vertex data so the SRP batcher can pick them up. Does that even work if vertex color is unique between two draw calls? Or can the SRP batcher also not batch them in that case

The reason I'm asking is because even without using any MPBs myself, I still get this message on the object using the material:

[low lichen]

In those cases, it's up to dynamic batching to combine the meshes. That's how sprites are generally batched.

[sleek kite]

I feel like it can't be correct that 500 onscreen sprites use 500 batches & 500 setpass calls

[low lichen]

SpriteRenderer uses a material property block internally to set the sprite texture.

[low lichen]

The Stats window can't be trusted when using SRP Batcher last I checked

[sleek kite]

Well, they can't be SRP batched if they use a MPB

that's the whole reason I'm trying to get rid of them

I don't understand what the "correct" way to optimize sprite rendering is given GPU instancing is also not ideal with meshes that have a small amount of vertices

[low lichen]

I don't know much about SRP Batcher and SpriteRenderer compatibility. But normally SpriteRenderer relies on dynamic batching to combine the meshes

This comment says SRP Batcher doesn't support sprites. It's from 2019, but I can't find anything more recent.
https://forum.unity.com/threads/srp-batcher-in-2018-2.527397/page-2#post-470

[sleek kite]

Any idea if GPU instancing works with the dynamic batches? I'm guessing no

[low lichen]

No, it's either or. And you generally can't use GPU instancing with SpriteRenderers, or at least not if you're changing the sprite renderer color or using Tight Mesh type instead of Full Rect.

Or if you're using sprite atlases, since that relies on modifying the mesh UVs, meaning it's no longer instances of the same mesh. Sprite Atlas was made for dynamic batching.

[sleek kite]

Yes I'm using version 2 of the atlasing system

I'm just confused on what the best way to optimize this is

My objects are made up of many small sprites and I fear that that will become a problem

[low lichen]

Dynamic batching works great as long as you can avoid changing material properties and just use the same material on all of your sprite renderers. MPB will break dynamic batching too. You can use SpriteRenderer.color to pass in whatever 4 floats you want instead of material properties.

The only other thing you need to be wary of is sorting order. That can really mess up your batching. Since sprites are usually transparent, Unity must respect the sorting order you specify, which limits how much it can batch together.

It would be really nice if there was an exposed API to modify the mesh generated by SpriteRenderer, similar to Unity UI's Graphic.OnPopulateMesh. Then we wouldn't be limited to just the color property.

[sleek kite]

I thought the SpriteRenderer also uses MBPs? So anything drawn by a sprite renderer can't be dynamic batched?

[low lichen]

Sorry, I meant MPBs with different property values. Since SpriteRenderer only sets the _MainTex property to the sprite texture (or the atlas if it's part of one), it can still batch together renderers that share the same sprite or atlas texture.

[sleek kite]

But sending "data" to the shader using the vertex colors is fine for dynamic batching?

[low lichen]

Yes, since dynamic batching is just dynamically combining meshes that share the same material

Static batching is the same, except not dynamic :P

[sleek kite]

I guess this will also be an issue for me then, since I uses a lot of sorting groups. e.g. an actor will have a sorting group, and each weapon will also have a sorting group as its "parts" need to sort together on one level, and then the parts of the actor need to sort against all other actors

[low lichen]

If they all share the same material and sprite atlas, it's fine. But if you're sorting it "actor1 -> weapon1 -> actor2 -> weapon2" etc... and actor and weapon use different materials or atlases, then you have a problem.

[sleek kite]

They all use the same atlas and same material

[low lichen]

Then you're all good

[sleek kite]

So I just need to get rid of my MPBs

Is there a way to check if stuff is actually getting batched? The frame debugger only shows SRP batching afaik

[low lichen]

Not a bad idea to check that dynamic batching is enabled in the SRP asset. I think it might be a hidden option only visible in Debug mode in the inspector.

[sleek kite]

I think I checked earlier and you can't even turn it off for sprites

[low lichen]

If I remember correctly, dynamic batched draw calls will appear in Frame Debugger as something like "Dynamic mesh"

[sleek kite]

iirc I currently have an entity and item atlas, so I assume I should be merging those

[low lichen]

Yeah, if you can

It's a bit inconvenient and doesn't scale very well though. Technically, sorting by "actor1 -> actor2 -> item1 -> item2" would be fine most of the time. It's only problematic when actors overlap. Unfortunately, I don't think Unity is smart enough to detect that and only use the less optimal "actor1 -> item1 -> actor2 -> item2" sorting when there is an overlap (assuming actor and item are different materials/atlases)

But in theory it's something you could implement yourself.

[sleek kite]

I hope not ☠️

I'm guessing this is what it should look like

[low lichen]

Yeah, that looks like dynamic batching.

I checked my basic URP project and it looks like dynamic batching was disabled by default. I had to switch to Debug inspector mode to see this, including the Use SRP Batcher option.

[sleek kite]

Is this on the pipeline asset?

[low lichen]

Yeah

[sleek kite]

What's odd is that the frame debugger still shows each sprite drawn separately. The setpass count went down a lot though

[low lichen]

What reason does Frame Debugger give for why those draw calls can't be batched?

[sleek kite]

For the SRP batcher?

[low lichen]

No, those Draw Dynamic calls

[sleek kite]

I don't see anything about dynamic batching

just "batch cause"

which I think pertains to the SRP batcher

[low lichen]

So it doesn't say something like "Draw call uses different material" when you select one of those draw calls?

[low lichen]

I haven't used the updated Frame Debugger UI yet. Can you see something like this section anywhere?

[sleek kite]

I think that is the batch cause actually. Removing the DisableBatching tag from the shader batches them. Now I'm confused on why that was even there in the first place

Pretty sure I copied this shader from the unity shader archives

[low lichen]

There can be some shader compatibility issues with dynamic batching because it's combining the meshes. The name is a bit confusing because it's specifically about dynamic batching, not batching in general.

This is useful for shader programs that perform object space operations. Dynamic Batching transforms all geometry into world space, meaning that shader programs can no longer access object space. Shader programs that rely on object space therefore do not render correctly. To avoid this problem, use this SubShader Tag to prevent Unity from applying Dynamic Batching.

It's possible it was added by mistake to that shader though

[low lichen]

I placed some sprite renderers in the scene and I'm still seeing them combined into one Draw Dynamic call in the Frame Debugger, so that hidden property probably isn't used or is ignored for sprite renderers like you said.

[low lichen]

Why does it need to do this? Isn't this just a lit sprite shader?

[sleek kite]

It's for a custom shadow system I wrote. It's pretty simple, it just props up the sprite and then renders shadows as if they were 3D objects

It needs to do some offsetting to the object though depending on rotation and height on the "parent" object

[low lichen]

So this is in a separate shadow pass?

[sleek kite]

Yea

I guess that part could just be not-batched

I'm also having trouble passing my MPB values to the vertex color of the SpriteRenderer, I'm guessing it clamps values to [0, 1] somewhere?

[upbeat steppe]

hey sorry for the silly question but I've been trying for so long to get a good mirror that works with vr android

can somebody please help me

?

[low lichen]

Oh yeah, that's the other annoying thing I was trying to remember

[sleek kite]

Is there an easy way to use the texcoord channels on a sprite renderer?

[low lichen]

Not that I know of, but that would be great

[sleek kite]

I guess I'll divide them by some arbitrary max value, they aren't that big

[low lichen]

https://forum.unity.com/threads/add-local-sprite-uv-coordinates-in-uv2.1218384/

[sleek kite]

Well now to figure out why my shadows broke. Thanks so much for explaining / helping me with these things though @low lichen , I really appreciate it!

tfw you come back to your shader after ages and have no idea what you calculated since you didn't add any comments:

[sleek kite]

What does the sprite renderer actually do that's special besides updating the vertex values in the mesh with the color and setting the selected sprite with a MPB?

[low lichen]

It will change the UVs if you're using a texture atlas.

And texture atlases support rotated sprites, which isn't possible with a simple tiling and offset.

[sleek kite]

Color being clamped is really annoying

Means I can't even reinterpret bytes or anything

I'm surprised I can't find any asset store assets that are just a better sprite renderer. I've also found posts from 2015 from Unity saying they want to add access to other UV channels in SpriteRenderer 😬

I'm still not sure what the best way to set per-frame values required by shaders is though. Is setting something like the UV coordinates of the mesh each frame really the best way? Or maybe using shader arrays or something?

Shame material property blocks are such a hindrance to batching, they really make that easy

[swift loom]

haven't really followed so not sure what you're trying to do but

i do some bitwise stuff in the frag shader via color channels

is it that kind of stuff?

[sleek kite]

I want to use dynamic batching for my sprites, but I also need to provide some CPU data to the shader

Currently it's using material property blocks, but those break the batching

And it seems impossible to access any other vertex channels from a sprite renderer

[swift loom]

are you using the normal map

might be able to send stuff via that

[sleek kite]

Wouldn't that also break batching? Since it's not part of the vertex data

[swift loom]

i have broken and discarded batching entirely so i'm not sure, but i think the normaltex works like the maintex so you can just set it per object without instancing or anything

[drowsy linden]

okay, I am making an eye shader that will make the eye texture point in a direction I give it with code. however, I'm not sure how to go about doing this? I've tried a couple times, and I think the secret is using the dot product somehow, but I can't quite wrap my head around it. The surface the eyes are on is mostly flat with slight curvature. Can someone help me with this?

[low lichen]

That is an option actually. You could use the vertex color as just a place to store a unique index for this sprite renderer, which can then be used to access any number of global arrays where the actual data is stored.

[sleek kite]

I'm not sure how efficient setting a very large global shader array is per frame? I've rarely used them

[low lichen]

Regular shader arrays are limited to 1024 elements I believe, but you can use a ComputeBuffer to increase that. And there are faster options to writing to ComputeBuffers, like with NativeArray and C# jobs.

But not supported on all platforms, like WebGL.

[sleek kite]

It's a DOTS project, so NativeArrays / jobs shouldn't be a problem 😅

[sleek kite]

What's the size limit on computebuffers?

[low lichen]

Big enough to not worry about basically. I think it shares the same memory limits as textures.

And nice thing about compute buffers is that they can be any type you want, including custom structs.

[sleek kite]

That sounds like it could work, thanks for letting me know 👍

I guess the only thing would be how large the buffer can be before using the float and multiplying it with it's size becomes too inaccurate to hit the correct buffer index

[low lichen]

Well, you have three more floats to use if that becomes a problem 👀

But yeah, very annoying that it's normalized.

Doesn't even make sense, HDR colors are a thing

[sleek kite]

Yep

[low lichen]

Actually, that's probably the most convincing argument for Unity to fix it. Might make a bug report for it 🤔

@sleek kite Actually, can you tell if it's just being clamped or if it's maybe being converted to Color32 internally?

[low lichen]

Well, worst case scenario, you can still pack a 32-bit integer into a Color32.

[sleek kite]

And then multiply each value with 255 and bit shift to combine to a value?

(since they arrive as floats / halfs)

[low lichen]

Yeah

[sleek kite]

Then I just gotta fix my object space usage somehow, if possible

(or disable batching for the shadow pass I guess)

Wait nvm, you can't disable it per pass

[drowsy linden]

or at least, what do I need to look up?

[low lichen]

With the global buffers and indices in place, you could pass the worldToLocalMatrix to each renderer.

[low lichen]

So do you already have an eye shader that just looks forward?

[drowsy linden]

Yeah it’s just a texture, I just need to move it

[sleek kite]

But won't the pivot point be incorrect? When dynamically batched the entire thing will be a single mesh, meaning I can't "rotate" around the proper pivot. Unless I'm misunderstanding something

[low lichen]

I'm trying to understand the code you posted before. I'm not seeing what the issue with dynamic batching could be, because you're not doing the calculation in object space. You convert to world space to do the calculation and then convert back to object space.

[sleek kite]

Nvm, I'm an idiot. I kept visualizing the batch as a huge square, but all of the vertices are still there

[low lichen]

Have you tried adding an offset to the UV? Whether that works depends on how the model is UV mapped.

[sleek kite]

This is basically what the shadow pass is doing, that should be fine with batching right?

[drowsy linden]

Yes, but 1 there’s tiling and 2 what do I offset it by to point in a direction? I know it probably involves a dot product but I’m not sure what I should take as the x and y axis

[sleek kite]

(basically tilting them 90° up)

[low lichen]

Yeah, that should be fine with batching, since the rotation is applied in world space

[low lichen]

That all depends on the mesh. Is it a perfect hemisphere, or full sphere? Or more realistic eye shape?

[drowsy linden]

it's a slightly curved plane

[drowsy linden]

wait, I had a brain blast. It sorta works now, but the texture repeats at the edge because I clamp it. I'll work it out eventually I think

wait nevermind, it doesnt work lol

[distant wadi]

Is this the use of shaders? (like overall and also the yellow dispersing in the border)

[mental bone]

Could be a shader could be just a sprite made like that or a sprite sheet animation

No way to tell

[dim yoke]

Yes, shaders draws everything 😅

[sleek kite]

Is this not the correct way to rebuild a 32 bit integer inside a shader from a float4?

const float4 colorBytes = input.color * 255;
int id = (int)colorBytes.x | ((int)colorBytes.y << 8) | ((int)colorBytes.z << 16) | ((int)colorBytes.w << 24);

C# side is just

public static (byte _0000, byte _0008, byte _0016, byte _0024) ToBytes(this int value)
    => ((byte)value, (byte)(value >> 8), (byte)(value >> 16), (byte)(value >> 24));

[shadow locust]

no because:

• Downcasting an int to a byte will preserve the bit pattern
• casting a float to an int will NOT preserve the bit pattern because float uses the IEEE 754 representation

[shy atlas]

Does anyone now how to do this using shader lab ? https://answers.unity.com/questions/1784024/how-to-swap-out-rgb-colors-of-a-sprite-using-shade.html?childToView=1784296#answer-1784296

Shader lab Unity 5.6

[shadow locust]

based on a cursory reading just looks like some simple arithmetic, no?

although coor mask node might be the more complex part

[shy atlas]

I am not familiar with shader lab

I ve search it up but couldn’t find anything

[shadow locust]

not really sure what color mask does

[shadow locust]

there's examples in the unity docs

[shy atlas]

I am using Unity 5.6

There’s not much

[shy atlas]

I tried the code in the forum but it doesn’t work

[shadow locust]

Why not use shadergraph

oh wait why are you on Unity 5.6

that's ancient

[shy atlas]

Unity 5.6 doesn’t have it I believe

[shy atlas]

Yeah

But I need to use it for a school project so there’s no other choice

[sleek kite]

Isn't the float->integer at that point a value from 0 to 255, like a byte, which is then shifted? I'm not trying to "keep" the float bitpattern

[shadow locust]

Basically I'm wondering why you're using float4

why not use uint4

or for that matter

why not just use int in the first place

[sleek kite]

It comes from the vertex color

Unless you mean casting the float4 to int4

[shadow locust]

no

casgting wont work

because it's not going to preserve the bit pattern when going between integral and floating point types

[sleek kite]

I don't need to preserve it

I just need the number

0 to 255 as an int

Then shift

[shadow locust]

const float4 colorBytes = input.color * 255;
int id = (int)colorBytes.x | ((int)colorBytes.y << 8) | ((int)colorBytes.z << 16) | ((int)colorBytes.w << 24);```

this doesn't look like just getting the number

[sleek kite]

Take the 4 floats which are [0,1] , multiply by 255 so it's in [0,255], cast to int, shift each byte

[shadow locust]

this looks like you're trying to recreate a single integer treating each channel as a byte

to do this properly you'd need to have the bit pattern preserved

[sleek kite]

Yes, that's exactly what I'm trying to do 😓

Why do I need to preserve the float bit pattern?

[shadow locust]

you don't want to

you want to preserve the int bit pattern

[sleek kite]

Yes, and why doesn't that work? I cast to int first

Then shift

[shadow locust]

but if you want to use float as an intermediary, the most straightforward way would be if you just preserved the bit pattern all the way through

but a simple cast won't do that

it will rearrange the bits

[low lichen]

asuint is what you need

[sleek kite]

But that's not what I'm doing is it? Since it's an int, then shifted

Like I said, I don't care about the float bit pattern

[sleek kite]

To just reinterpret the Color32? What if unity does something like gamma correction in between

I don't know what exactly happens to the color besides being clamped

[low lichen]

Actually, I'm not certain. I'm testing it myself.

[sleek kite]

Awesome, thanks!

I don't think I'm getting the correct index from what I can tell by calling asuint(color) from the Color32(byte0000, byte0008, byte0016, byte0024)

[low lichen]

I've confirmed there is gamma correction being performed.

With the color set to Color32(6, 0, 0, 0), the shader just receives zeros.

[sleek kite]

That's very annoying, since it means I can't even pass in a color and multiply it

[low lichen]

I'm seeing if I can pre-correct it, but the operation will likely mess with the precision even further.

The alpha channel is not corrected though

[sleek kite]

Also something I wanted to make sure, once I set the compute buffer with SetBuffer, I don't need to set it again after modifying right?

e.g. with SetData

[low lichen]

I don't think so

@sleek kite Pre-correcting the color seems to work. I just used the color.gamma property.

I'm testing for precision errors manually, but I haven't found any errors, even with huge numbers.

[sleek kite]

So just set the color and subtract the gamma correction difference?

I've never done anything with gamma correction, not sure how the math works exactly

[low lichen]

No, I'm setting the sprite renderer color to color.gamma.

Gamma correction is just pow(color, 2.2)

[sleek kite]

Ah, from the color I built, got it, my bad

[sleek kite]

Interesting, thanks!

[low lichen]

I ended up using a different method to get the bytes in C#. I'm going to try your method to confirm that isn't part of the problem.

[sleek kite]

Wouldn't that pow the color value again?

Or does it know that it's "already" corrected somehow

[low lichen]

I used color.linear first because I thought that would reverse it, but gamma ended up being the correct one. I'm not sure why.

Maybe Unity is expecting a gamma corrected color and is doing the linear conversion, so we have to gamma correct it ourselves.

[sleek kite]

Huh, odd

[low lichen]

Also, I'm using uint in all of this, because in HLSL, buffers are indexed with uint

[sleek kite]

Are you just calling asuint on the float4 Color in the shader?

[low lichen]

No, I copied your shader

[sleek kite]

Ah

[low lichen]

Your C# byte conversion also works. So the problem was just the gamma correction.

[sleek kite]

Cool, I'll test it once I'm done eating. Thanks again!

[low lichen]

Just so you know, I used RenderDoc to see the exact color values being set on the mesh and that's how I was able to confirm the gamma correction issue. When I passed in 0.5, it got turned into 0.217 something, which I confirmed is approximately equal to pow(0.5, 2.2)

[sleek kite]

That sounds like a tool I need to immediately purchase

And it's actually open source!

[low lichen]

Yep, 👍

And has integrated support in Unity

[humble robin]

I used SV_DEPTH to write on depth buffer but using _CameraDepthTexture on another shader gets the unmodified depth shader. Am i doing something wrong?

i change it on a pass that gets executed AfterRenderingTransparents and use it on another pass that gets executed BeforeRenderingPostProcessing

so it should be changing before i call it too

[low lichen]

This is because _CameraDepthTexture is not referencing the actual depth buffer but another texture that was rendered previously in a depth pass. In that render pass, all renderers in the scene are drawn with their DepthOnly shader pass, which is just a simple shader that calculates the depth and outputs it as the color.

So you need to modify the DepthOnly pass in your shader to match what you're doing with SV_Depth

[humble robin]

ohh i never thought about it

thanks so much

[low lichen]

If you're using deferred rendering or are using Depth and Normals, you may have to modify other passes

[humble robin]

how can i modify it from another render pass

[low lichen]

Unless the only modification you're doing is changing some pixels to be closer to the camera than they actually are, you can't make the modification after the depth pass has been rendered.

Or what I mean is, you can modify the _CameraDepthTexture if you want, but all information about what pixels belong to what objects is lost at that point.

Ok, I think I'm just misunderstanding. I thought you were modifying the depth of a specific object, but it sounds like you're doing a fullscreen pass. In that case, you should be able to set _CameraDepthTexture as the render target and draw to it. The only difference is you don't need to output SV_Depth, because it isn't a depth buffer. You just need to output a shade of grey.

[humble robin]

so i should output my depth map as color and use it as _cameraDepthTexture, right?

is there a way i can have multiple outputs, the way i get the final depth texture is kinda expensive

[low lichen]

You could modify the _CameraDepthTexture first and then read from it to modify the actual depth buffer. Can't do it the other way because you can't read from a depth buffer.

[humble robin]

thanks

i guess i'll mix my outline and pixelization shaders then

that way there shouldn't be any problems

thanks a lot for the help, it would take ages to realize that

[gusty horizon]

hey all - i would love to learn more about shaders, specifically targeting 2D. I have almost no knowledge of what’s actually going on between the CPU/GPU and the relationship between textures/mats/shaders for 2D sprites. can anyone recommend some resources I could look into to help solidify my understanding?

also - I’m a professional C# developer, so I think I’ll be fairly comfortable with HLSL. Would it be worth going down that route or is shadergraph the way forward for unity?

[sleek kite]

Can I inspect the contents of the structured buffer in RenderDoc?

[low lichen]

Yes. You can even type in the structure definition in HLSL syntax to view it correctly

Because by default it assumes float4

[strange sonnet]

I've started with ShaderX by Wolfgang Engel, but I'm reasonably sure there are more up-to-date books these days.

As of shader graph, to be blunt: it sucks. Just don't bother.

Ned Makes Games is writing a series of articles about writing HLSL shaders for URP: https://nedmakesgames.medium.com/writing-unity-urp-shaders-with-code-part-1-the-graphics-pipeline-and-you-798cbc941cea

Also I recommend CatLikeCoding: https://catlikecoding.com/, they too have some cool resources

Ah, wait, ShaderX is a different series by the same author
I was talking about "Beginning Direct3D Game Programming". ShaderX is a cookbook with tips and tricks.

[gusty horizon]

hey Alice, thanks so much for these resources! yeah, from what I've seen so far, shadergraph seemed pretty meh - I tend to avoid the flowchart-y code-free solutions.

I'll take a look at ShaderX Beginning Direct3D Game Programming, and some more up-to-date books. Completely noob q but, anything that applies to 3D applies to 2D also?

[strange sonnet]

At least within Unity, 2D objects are pretty much 3D objects with quads.

[gusty horizon]

got you. alright, thanks so much, v appreciated!

[low lichen]

Yes. GPUs only support 3D, 2D is just flattened 3D. The main differences are the Unity specific ones, how it handles SpriteRenderers differently from MeshRenderer and etc...

[gusty horizon]

yeah that makes sense. is there anything specifically I should know about the difference between how unity handles sprit renderers from mesh renderers when writing shaders?

[swift loom]

@gusty horizon I have been doing a lot of hlsl for pixel art and it's not overly complicated. Don't overlook compute shaders if you are doing any pixel art stuff as well because it can save you a lot of processing not working over the same pixel multiple times on scaled resolutions. You can also download the unity shader pack and look at the sprite default shader and work a lot out that way.

[low lichen]

The Color property in SpriteRenderer is passed in as vertex color, so you need to take that into account when making sprite shaders if you want that property to do anything.

[gusty horizon]

that's the same purpose I'm hoping to use shaders for - pixel art being about the only style I can draw with any competency 🥲 watched a few nice videos on compute shaders to wrap my head around them, defo will keep that in mind when learning. I'm guilty of copy pasting unity's sprite default shader up until this point haha

[low lichen]

There's no shame in copying and editing. There's so much boilerplate, especially in lit shaders.

[gusty horizon]

agreed!

[swift loom]

@gusty horizon on phone now so can't really show much but it's really simple.

But typically don't really need to care about the extra performance but I do a lot of raymarching and stuff so it mattered a lot (120 to 400 fps)

[gusty horizon]

no worries - thanks for all the help 😊

[sleek kite]

Are there huge performance detriments to having an unused property from an MPB lying around in a shared file that isn't used by all functions?

Or should I move the function to a second file to get rid of the property for that subshader

[low lichen]

If it isn't ultimately being referenced in the code, the compiler should remove it.

[sleek kite]

Is it normal to have a setpass call per batch with sprites?

I feel like it should be less, since I'm reusing the material

e.g.

[humble robin]

i want an object to draw exactly 1 pixel if it is not behind something entirely, how can i do it?

[hearty obsidian]

Is my understanding correct : a mesh will not be factored in the opaque texture, even if it's rendered as opaque, if the render queue is manually set beyond 2500?

and follow up Q, if so, is there a way for the opaque texture to be updated later down the rendering process?

[dim yoke]

TLDR: yes. It doesnt really matter what the render type is, the color buffer values (everything thats already rendered to the screen) are just copied to the opaque texture after all objects with opaque queue have been rendered. There are ways to capture textures from the color buffer via code but its highly render pipeline dependent, you can probably find something by googling or asking on the rp specific channels (#archived-urp , #archived-hdrp , and maybe #💻┃unity-talk for birp), I have no experience doing that myself

[hearty obsidian]

@dim yoke Thank you so much

[reef owl]

Trying to implement deferred lighting. How can I get unity to pass all current transformation matrices to a compute shader?

I have a kind of jank system that works right now where I calculate the relevant matrices manually in c# and pass them to the GPU, but I'm wondering if there's a better system?

[low lichen]

Yeah, I think it makes sense. "Saved by batching" is the number you would have if you didn't have any batching going on.

I'm not sure what scenarios SetPass calls would be lower than Batches. I guess maybe if there's too many meshes with the same material that it can't combine them all into one mesh and has to split it. Then it will be two batches, but only one SetPass call since they share the same material.

[sleek kite]

Alright, just wanted to make sure 👍

The compute buffer approach worked really well btw, everything works as before and is batching now. Thanks again for all the help 🙂

And RenderDoc is really cool, lets you see so much about what is going on during rendering

[hearty obsidian]

Im trying to render a plane according to the scene depth (present plane excluded) with eye mode. If I set the render queue to 2500 or less, it factors itself in the depth buffer and returns an undesired result. If I set the depth write mode to force disabled, I still get the undesirable result, the object factors itself in the depth buffer. Is there anything I can do to have it work while preserving the render queue of 2500 or less?

[hollow cargo]

Hi, trying to do a shader graph for a sun effect, but I have an issue that each sun has the same timer. I've tried using the absolute world position to augment the time, but that seems to mess it up.. what's a good way to offset the time a little?

Just using literal Time atm, not sure if I should be using something else there too. But yeah, the only different between the objects is their position, so it feels like the only thing I can use to modify the effect

Just as a reference for what I mean. Different positions, same effect timing. Need them to all move a little differently

[proven sail]

Hey yall, I never make shaders so I'm pretty braindead here - I have a shader that's unlit and I want it to look like a sort of portal/oval shape on the wall when I put it onto a quad/plane. How do I go about doing this? Should I just make a portal shape with geometry, or is that less efficient than having the shader draw it with a bunch of wacky math? I can post the code if necessary. Thanks in advance.

[frank swift]

Quick Issue Here:

The Material has decided to place its self on either side of the cylinder, the cylinder had its normals flipped and I want to clarify this is a unity sprite not a custom one.

[proven sail]

is backface culling off or on in the shader?

[frank swift]

unsure its the Legacy Shaders/Diffuse provided by unity.

[proven sail]

does it still have both faces rendered if you use another shader?

or is it only with that shader

[frank swift]

Nope multiple shaders produce same result.

[hazy zinc]

How do I make something that acts like a mask with grayscale effect, so I could add that sprite/world space image to places where I want this grayscale effect? Followed tutorials, but they are either outdated or something beyond my level of understanding

Or they simply show how to add grayscale effect to a sprite

[frank swift]

also like to mention the texture is very tall but only 1000 pixels wide (16383x1000 i think)

[grizzled bolt]

Using object world position to offset the time will work, but if they move the offset will change
If it doesn't work when they're stationary you're probably not doing it right
You can also use a property for the offset and randomize it with a script if you don't mind producing material variants
Vertex colors are a handy way to get unique arbitrary variables, but a little more code to set procedurally

[hazy zinc]

@grizzled bolt okay! the question is - what is wrong with my shader? The idea was to change this code, which gives me almost exactly what I need, something I can put(in this case - raw image+render texture) in my scene so that an area becomes -> but in the following code(https://github.com/zephyo/UI-Blur-LWRP-2020/blob/master/Assets/Shader/UIBlur.shader) it is blur, not grayscale which I need. So I tried to change the shader, and, well, it does not work. Sadly, I have no idea why. Do you per chance have an idea?
http://pastie.org/p/3yvXEwMSNGd7otVTjkY4ZE

[hazy zinc]

@grizzled bolt ookay, I think I got it partly. I get the render texture grayscaled, but it shows not what's under but rather a bit different area of my scene, and also flipped. Do you know how to fix that?

[meager pelican]

Who says that's an actual hole?
Could be done as light projectors (think of them as light bulbs, but calcing the angle from some distant point behind that door's plane).