archived-shaders

[cosmic prairie]

for example you could make differences visible by, idk the more red part of the object is the larger the difference?

but you can't access data from one shader in the other

shaders are just their own isolated mini program

you can barely do anything crazy

only way to read and write info in shaders is with buffers

but i'd recommend you just compare the shaders you have by eye and maybe paint

its what everyone does, it's the fastest way

graphics almost never has to be precise

if it looks good, it looks good

maybe if you describe why you need all this debugging crazyness, what kind of effect you want to achieve I can help

[distant dirge]

Then copy this?

[neon lagoon]

It's not a tutorial or open project so I cant

[distant dirge]

Does he show anything of how its done

Anyways what rp do you have

[neon lagoon]

Not sure what an RP is

[neon lagoon]

No

[distant dirge]

Render pipeline

[neon lagoon]

The built-in unity one

[distant dirge]

Well i have clue how to actually write shaders sooo
Shader graph in URP makes life much easier for me

Hopefully someone else knows

[neon lagoon]

No problem and I hope someone does

[cosmic prairie]

there's shader graph for built-in now too

you can do outlines by rendering the mesh a second time inside-out, vertices offset by their own normals

and the color is just any color you define

[neon lagoon]

No clue how I'd do that

[onyx cargo]

are smoothness and roughness the same thing?

some threads i just read i'm led to believe if i'm packing a roughness map into the alpha of a metal map for the standard shader, i should invert it first because smoothness is the invert of roughness

[regal stag]

Roughness = 1 - Smoothness, is my understanding (aka inverting yes)

[onyx cargo]

@regal stag thanks! I'm using some materials from gametextures.com and I notice if i download their prepackaged version for unity PBR, the metal map has nothing in the alpha (it says RGBA in the inspector, but when i open in photoshop there is literally no alpha channel), and they don't provide the roughness/smoothness map when you choose that download option

that's straight up wrong, correct?

[regal stag]

Maybe? I know with Unity the smoothness can either be the alpha channel of the albedo map, or metallic map. That's why there's a "smoothness source" dropdown on the Standard shader. So maybe they put it in the albedo?

I don't work with PBR textures a lot so others might know more

[tight phoenix]

What are possible reasons why object space positions calculate correctly, but the same positions in world space do not 🤔

the only difference between these two is changing from object to world space

[amber saffron]

The object is rotated or scaled, or simply translated?

Object & world position only match if the transform of the object is (0,0,0)(0,0,0)(1,1,1)

[tight phoenix]

in this picture the world space one is at 0 0 0 with no scale or rotate

which is why the noise is the same shape as the left one, which is in object space

but you can see the normals are completely blown out, despite that being the only difference

also unrelated buy sometimes shadergraph wont let me connect nodes

and I don't know why this is the case

[regal stag]

If the chain is connected to the fragment stage it sometimes blocks you from connecting to vertex stage (and vice versa). It's best to keep them completely separate.

There are also nodes which can't be connected to the vertex stage (like DDX, DDY, Sample Texture 2D) but since you're using a Preview node to reroute that's not the issue here.

[amber saffron]

Are they the same object ? If yes, the left one is definitively rotated then, explaining the difference ?

[tight phoenix]

Ahh I see, yes I had to connected to fragment because I was trying to debug the problem

[tight phoenix]

the left one is in object space

so its rotation is unrelated to the problem

though I dont understand why they dont match in that regard

somehow changing object space to world space did that

[regal stag]

I don't know if this is related to the current issue, but for the record btw, if you want to debug the normal, use the Normal Vector node in the fragment stage, as that'll already be the normal you input into the vertex stage.
If you try to connect somewhere along that normal recalculating chain to the fragment stage, it'll be doing the calculations again, with that already adjusted normal, so what you'll see would be kinda wrong.

[amber saffron]

Sorry, I'm trying to understand what I see and what is the issue, but a lot of things you've said are confusing :

• in the screenshot, what are the color showing ? Positions like you've said ? Looks like normals
• You want to compare object space vs world space positions. Supposely, the world space object in the screenshot (right) is unscaled, unrotated, and placed a 0,0,0
  Then why did you rotate the one showing object space ? To have a better comparison, just translate it, it only makes it more difficult to compare if you add rotation

[tight phoenix]

okay, I wasnt doing that because previously connecting normals wasnt working to visualize them

but it seems to be working now

[tight phoenix]

let me try to explain from the top to help make understanding clear

left is in object space, its deformed and recalculated
right is in world space, same, its the same exact shader in every way, except for the space being changed

but in world space the normals are completely wrong

resulting in the blown out look there

[regal stag]

It might also be a good idea to make a thread, these conversations always get so long 😅

[tight phoenix]

yeah good point

I need this to be in world space, not object space

but the math to recalculate the deformation normals doesnt work in world space for some reason I dont understand

and I am trying to fix it but I have no comprehension of why its not working

[amber saffron]

They should.
Switch all the nodes to world (absolute world for positions)

But at the end, you need to transform the outputed normal to object space again.

[tight phoenix]

yeah I was, it wasnt working though. Give me a minute to try to strip out everything to figure out where its going wrong

now its behaving completely differently

when all I did was flip it to object space and back to world space

which makes no @#$@^ing sense

suddenly the normals are correct

but when I move the mesh, it moves further than the mesh moves further than the game object

which also makes no sense

shaders are completely and utterly illogical and random

literally the only thing I did was turn it to object space and back to world space

[amber saffron]

No they aren't.
Shaders are math, and math are logical and predictible.

[tight phoenix]

that cannot change the shader that fundamentally

[tight phoenix]

k

if you just wanna be a dick to me why do you even bother replying, I need help not abuse

[amber saffron]

I'm trying to help, and I gave you some guidance, and apparently it worked ? Is that beeing a d**k for you ?
I'm just saying that there is no magic here, and no random value that changes when you look away from you screen, if something doesn't work at some point, and then seems to work after you do "the exact same thing", then you didn't do the same thing.

[cosmic prairie]

adding a second material in the mesh renderer achieves the second rendering of the mesh

if you create a shader graph shader and add it to your new material

[amber saffron]

"Works", but no recommanded nor supported workflow

[cosmic prairie]

what is the supported workflow?

[amber saffron]

Have an other mesh object, or use custom passes (HDRP) / custum renderer features (URP)

[cosmic prairie]

and what benefit does it bring to have multiple gameObjects / meshrenderers over multiple materials?

and how much extra work are custom passes?

[amber saffron]

It is supported.
Let me explain : a mesh/meshrenderer has basically one material per sub mesh. If you add more materials then there are submeshes, effectivement unity will re-render them over, but this is more by chance than something else, and you should rely on this behaviour as it may change per renderer pipeline, or in the future.

[amber saffron]

Custom passes / rendering feature have the benefit of beeing integrated in the rendering loop, and can automatically re-render meshes from a specific layer with an other material.

[cosmic prairie]

I know about the benefits of that part, but try to explain this to a begginer

[amber saffron]

Here's an official tutorial on how to do it : https://learn.unity.com/tutorial/custom-render-passes-with-urp#

[cosmic prairie]

Assigning a new material just seems way more convenient

[cosmic prairie]

By the way, this is just a random decision that it isn't supported, there's no reason why it couldn't be

The way it would work with multiple submeshes (and I think worked a long time ago), is that after all submeshes are rendered with their material indexes, it would just loop around and all un-rendered materials render with the looped submeshes

with submesh 1 and 2: mat1 mesh1 mat2 mesh2 mat3 mesh1 mat4 mesh2

[amber saffron]

Well, it is "supported" in the way that we mention it in the doc. But if you have a bit of complex object with more than one material, you're screwed and it won't work anymore : https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-MeshRenderer.html#materials

Note: If there are more materials than there are sub-meshes, Unity renders the last sub-mesh with each of the remaining materials, one on top of the next. If the materials are not fully opaque, you can layer different materials and create interesting visual effects. However, fully opaque materials overwrite previous layers, so any additional opaque materials that Unity applies to the last sub-mesh negatively affect performance and produce no benefit.

[cosmic prairie]

I've also read about submeshes and Unity, and it's more like submeshes are not supported not the multi-material part

[amber saffron]

Submeshes are supported, that's for sure, it's more the behaviour of "more material than submeshes" that is clunky.

[cosmic prairie]

Yeah, but again, I wonder why that is since having this would be like 3-5 lines of code added tops

And it would make sense

[amber saffron]

IDK why it was decided like this, and probably that the persons that took this decision had also valid arguments.
It is now to late to rollback I guess.

Imho, it should just be impossible to assign more materials than submeshes, and that's all.

[cosmic prairie]

Imho it should be easier to add custom passes in URP

Until then, i'll just use this when there's 1 submesh

Because what if I don't want to replace the materials? I do not want to replace anything and have any business with tags

just have an object drawn multiple times and to it's own thing

not going to add multiple objects, because that's a useless memory footprint, and if you go back to change something all other objects need to be changed

it just doesn't make sense

Either multiple materials should be supported, or multiple shader SubShaders or Passes that render without any previous setting up

That's the other thing

SubShader

????

what's that even

Why not add support for multiple?

All these old but useful features that have seen no love in URP

[amber saffron]

It's more about LOD and fallback than stacked rendering. It is supported to have multiple subshaders

[cosmic prairie]

ah, so only a fallback

[amber saffron]

Or LOD, like I said. Raise the LOD shader level -> switch to simpler sub shader

[cosmic prairie]

isn't this kindof what fallback also means? in general terms

[amber saffron]

Maybe I shouldn't have use fallback in that case.
We do have a fallback mechanic for when a shader can not render on a platform/api, it falls back to an other supposed compatible one

[cosmic prairie]

Yeah, I know that one, it's also usable for passes, right? Or when passes fail the subshader fails?

[amber saffron]

According to the doc, it is for the full shader

The command I mean.
But indeed, it states that

If no compatible SubShaders are found, use the named Shader object.
So subshader are used to do fallback within a shader itself

[cosmic prairie]

Ah, okay

[old saffron]

Thanks! I was able to get it to work

This is the only mention of Property Blocks that I can find with code example. And I needed to enable GPU instancing on the material.
https://forum.unity.com/threads/can-shader-graph-materials-properties-be-edited-locally-in-each-isntance-of-the-material.665803/

[onyx cargo]

I have a surface shader I cobble together that clips objects to a plane

but I need functionality that the standard shader adds

is there a way to write a shader that extends the standard shader instead of a surface shader, with cginc standardcore includes etc, but have it clip to a plane?

[neon lagoon]

Im still confused about all this never done anything with coding before from what i have seen it should be a pretty simple script just no clue how to make it

[sudden portal]

Hey, I have a stupid question, is there a way to fixe the normal of a mesh when we apply him a World space texture.

Like :
I have a tilleable texture, I apply it in world space to a mesh, I duplicate the mesh and rotate it on the Y Axis (so the planes faces the same direction).
Actually normals will act like I have rotate the light source.

How to fixe this and make the normal moove only when the light source is mooved ?

[azure loom]

Wtf is this?

[prime shale]

looks like a light leak

[azure loom]

how

[shadow locust]

#archived-lighting

[steady reef]

I have no idea about shaders, but I'm working on a project with my friend who's not available right now.
He wrote a shader that I have to edit right now.
His shader makes big splotches of paint over objects and I need to make that paint black, but when I set the paint to be black then nothing appears.
I guess that's because black is the alpha channel.

Can someone help me figure this out?

[kind juniper]

Probably because it's fed into emission color. Try multiplying it with the texture sample and feeding into base color.

Although then it might make the non painted areas black 🤔

[steady reef]

This didn't work

BUT

I just had a thought out of the box

And I thought that instead of trying to color the texture black I colored the black the texture 😄

I don't know if I said it clearly. What I mean is that now the color is under the texture instead of the other way around

[maiden leaf]

Anyone know why this shader is showing black in the transparent areas in the game view, but it shows transparency properly in the scene view?

[simple violet]

If its a ui shader i dont think its gonna work unless you enable opaque with alpha clipping

[vagrant bough]

Hello! Excuse me if I may seem a bit clueless, I'm very new to unity.

This part of the model I'm working with only shows on one side. I've been told that by making a custom shader with Cull Off would allow it to appear on both sides, but can't find a a way to simultaneously have the material show on both sides and have the rendering mode set to Cutout (the black bg isn't supposed to be there). Is there a way for me to get rid of the black bg and have it be double-sided at the same time like it does in blender?
(First two images are in unity. Second two are in Blender, which I'm trying to replicate.)

[wraith wing]

hi, quick question.
is there's any way to "convert" this to black white?

[sacred stratus]

yes, you can for example add the green values to all 3 elements of a channel so
cpp BlendModeAdd(Color.black, new Color(othercolor.g,othercolor.g,othercolor.g,1);

[sacred stratus]

@wraith wing

[wraith wing]

well, thank you
but found easier way using saturate node instead

[astral pecan]

How to calculate Light Attenuation for custom lighting?

[amber saffron]

You can find the hlsl light attenuation function if you dig into the URP/HDRP shader files, or do you own maths for any other stylized effect

[fossil cloak]

Can you show the import settings of your 2D sprite and the Shader and Material?

[sacred stratus]

Can someone help me graphically solve this bezier curve?

the points are the ponts of the aqua bezier curve, which is how it should be

[amber saffron]

What do you mean by "graphically solve" ?

[sacred stratus]

like I want to be able to graphically solve each point on the curve at a given interval

[tropic field]

Anyone have any resources on how I could go about making this sort of spiral texture procedurally
using shader graphs?

[sacred stratus]

my current method gives me this which does not seem correct or usefull at all

[amber saffron]

The non factored math behind this is : p = lerp(lerp(pA, cA, t), lerp(cB, pB, t), t)
Does this help ?

[sacred stratus]

what does factored mean?

[amber saffron]

Not cleaned and optimized 😅

[sacred stratus]

oh xdd

[amber saffron]

The logic is : lerp between point A and controll A, lerp between controll B and point B, and finally lerp between the two precedent point, all by the same factor

Ah no, it's even more complicated XD, forgot a lerp step

Here's a nice visual explanation : https://twitter.com/FreyaHolmer/status/1063633411246628864?s=20

Freya Holmér (@FreyaHolmer)

Bézier curves are, to me, one of the best examples of mathematical beauty. It's fascinating what such a simple function on some points can achieve. Here's a step-by-step visualization of how a cubic Bézier curve can be constructed. Note each point's position along its own line

Likes

508

▶ Play video

Twitter · Nov 17, 2018, 3:22 AM

And formulas : https://twitter.com/FreyaHolmer/status/1500862081070944262

Freya Holmér (@FreyaHolmer)

three different perspectives of a cubic bézier curve

Likes

599

Twitter · Mar 7, 2022, 3:52 PM

[sacred stratus]

The thing you explained gives me this

I don't think it's correct but it seems better already

[amber saffron]

The one I badly refered to was the "DeCasteljau" one

[regal stag]

Using the Polar Coordinates node should help. Perhaps something like multiply output for scaling, split and add together the components, perhaps with some slight noise, then use a step node. That's off the top of my head though so might not be completely correct.

[tropic field]

i will look into this, thanks a bunch for giving me a direction!

[sacred stratus]

I think it's working pretty good!

[amber saffron]

Out of curiosity I tried to do it, I think this is what you'd want ?

[tropic field]

This is indeed what i need, the only problem here is that there are 3 swirls

i wanted a single swirl

[tropic field]

could you, if its not too much asking, also explain the logic behind this, like
how did you visualize this

how did you know that multiplying the abs and one minus nodes would remove the seam

[regal stag]

The 3 swirls would come from the multiply by Y=3 at beginning. Changing the Y value of that to 1 should mean only one swirl.

Doing it like this might also be a little more intuitive, but basically the same thing

Fraction output is 0-1 repeating, could just step this but has a harsh edge.
Subtracting 0.5 centers that (moves the range of values to (-0.5, 0.5))
Absolute brings negative range into positive, so values go from 0 to 0.5 in center of swirl, then back to 0.

[tropic field]

hmm

idk how to ask this but, how did you know what to do

like I want to be able to get to a point where I can also make these patterns out of understanding

i could follow this setup but then i wouldn't understand why it works the way it does

[regal stag]

Kinda just practice? Idk. I've done a bunch of experiments with polar coords before. e.g https://twitter.com/Cyanilux/status/1123950519133908995

Knowing the values the polar coordinates node produces is also probably important. In short, the red/x axis is the distance to center, and green/y is the angle going clockwise from the downwards direction. I've got a bit more info + images here, I should really update it with some of these swirl examples
https://www.cyanilux.com/tutorials/polar-coordinates/

Cyan ✨ (@Cyanilux)

I also made a few patterns/shapes using polar coords. The rotation is useful for repeating patterns around a circle, for procedural flower shapes... or maybe snowflakes or cogs? I probably won't use this but might inspire someone else I guess. 😄

Twitter · May 2, 2019, 2:01 PM

[amber saffron]

The base idea is this : take X & Y UVs, if you add them together you get a slope.
If you multiply any of the X or Y values, you alter the steepness of that slope:

If instead of rectangular UVs you use polar coordinates, instead of a straight slope you have one that goes from the center of the coordinates and circles around -> a spiral

[tropic field]

ok i understand until the add node

I'm a bit confused by the fraction node

from what i read on the wiki, it returns the decimal part of any input

so if I enter 0.3, it will return 3?

[regal stag]

No it would return 0.3. If you input 3.3, it returns 0.3 too

[tropic field]

okay, that makes a bit more sense, but how does the resulting pattern come to be?

[regal stag]

Can think of it like, a range of values from 0->3 would become 0->1, 0->1, 0->1

[amber saffron]

The preview can't display properly anything that is greater than 1 (as 1 is white, and nothing is brighter). But by using the fraction node you can see the fractional values of anything greater

[tropic field]

ah... makes sense, that results in the "edge" because those points are where the range passes a whole number

any place where 0.9 -> 1.1 turns into an "edge"

[regal stag]

Yep

[tropic field]

if i'm understanding it right

okayy... that makes so much more sense

[tropic field]

is there any workaround to this?
for example if it were somehow possible to see the actual values of any given point while hovering over the preview or something

that would help visualize the patterns in numbers

is there any tool like that?

[regal stag]

Hmm.. that would be kinda neat

[amber saffron]

Technically, it might be possible, but I guess all the preview are rendered in unorm format (so, 0->1 range), and having a feature like that, while probably usefull, isn't trivial to implement I guess.

[tropic field]

makes sense

[regal stag]

Easiest way to visualise values under 0 or above 1 is to just use nodes like Absolute, Negate, Fraction, etc to bring them into the 0-1 range

[tropic field]

coming back to this, okay i understand upto fraction till now

we subtract 0.5 to normalize it to -0.5 and 0.5?

[amber saffron]

I'd use the term "remap" instead of normalize, but yes 🙂

[tropic field]

remap yes my bad :P

and then we absolute it, so that negatives just get turned right back into positive..

hmm

[amber saffron]

Yes, this is done in order to have a symetrical shape

Because after absolue the value does 0.5 > 0 > 0.5

[tropic field]

ok!! that maeks sense

once you put it into words, the patterns just sort of "popped" into my eyes.. i don't know how else to explain it, but I see it now

[amber saffron]

And so, it is easier to trace the line based on a single thickness value : the step / smoothstep node

[tropic field]

okay while i understand how smoothstep is being used here

to sort of limit the range of values

would there be any repository / something of other applications of smoothstep

[amber saffron]

I prefer to consider smoothstep like ... well, a smoother version of step 🙂

[tropic field]

i'm unfamiliar with step also T_T

[amber saffron]

step : returns 0 if the input value is under a threshold, 1 if it is over

very simple

[tropic field]

okay, makes sense

[amber saffron]

smmothstep : uses two thresholds , if the input value is lower than the 1st one : 0. If it is over the 2nd : 1. If it is in between : interpolate smoothly

[tropic field]

ahhhhhhhh

ok

[amber saffron]

It is a very easy way to do anti aliasing :

[chilly marsh]

Forgive me if this is not the right channel, but I'm wondering if there's a shader or component which can do what I'm looking for. This dome has flipped normals. I'm trying to give it a background that looks like a "portal" almost. Like a skybox, but even more-so. If you're looking at the background of this object, it should show the clouds way far back, as if it's the real skybox.

I fear my request doesn't make sense, haha.

[amber saffron]

A simple shader that samples a cubemap (skybox) based on view directrion should do the trick.

[tropic field]

this makes sense, usefull application to know :0

[chilly marsh]

ty, I'll try

[tropic field]

thank you Remy and Cyan for your answers and patience!

i think i'm understanding it now ^_^

[amber saffron]

@tropic field It is with shader code, but quitte accessible imho, a very good explanation of how you can draw shapes in shader with mathematical functions. From our god Inigo Quilez : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ifChJ0nJfM

[tropic field]

god blessss

[low shard]

Does anyone know how to make my shader graph actually see transparency? I'm using a Lit shader graph and I'm using version 2019.4 (what it should be and what it is)

[regal stag]

Set graph type to Transparent in graph settings (for 2019 versions that might be the small cog on the master node?). If it's a sprite there might also be a Sprite Master node?
Also make sure the A output from the texture sample is connected to the Alpha port.

[chilly marsh]

Doing the skybox/cubemap with this image with the texture shape of cube, 6 frames layout gives me this result:

Possibly my UV mapping is off.

For the dome.

HEre's what it looks like in Blender

[regal stag]

Shouldn't need to UV map. What Remy is saying is import the skybox texture as a Cubemap, then in the shader sample that cubemap with the View Direction vector (vertexWorldPos - _WorldSpaceCameraPos)
How exactly to do that kinda depends on the pipeline / whether you're using code or graphs. In SRPs there's a SAMPLE_TEXTURECUBE macro.

[chilly marsh]

Ah, okay. ty. I misunderstood. I'll give it a shot.

Alright, this is something I'll have to pick up after work. I'm a bit out of my element.

[autumn sigil]

@regal stag do you have any tutorials on your paint shader you made a while back? Someone just pointed it out to me

I've been working on a paint shader and beginning to think I need two different layers, one for "standing" liquid and one for flat/drying liquid

an easier and more general Shader question: if I have a Shader Graph that takes a Texture2D input, do I need to create 2+ Materials from it if I need each Material to have a unique texture input?

[amber saffron]

Yes

[autumn sigil]

so I can't just reuse the same Material sadly

has to be a different Material if it's supposed to have a different Texture

[amber saffron]

Yes.
Materials are basically a group of settings for shaders.
You exposed the shader settings as "properties", and materials overrides those.
So, if you have a shader with a texture property, that you want to change per object, you need multiple materials using this shader, overriding the texture property each time.

What was your intend initially to avoid having multiple materials ?

[autumn sigil]

Well it's nonessential but I just didn't want to redo it each time if I could avoid it

If that's the way it has to be done it has to be done that way

[amber saffron]

https://tenor.com/view/book-of-boba-fett-the-mandalorian-this-is-the-way-the-book-of-boba-fett-mandalorian-gif-24825263

Jokes aside, if what bothers you is that if you want to a change you have to do it on multiple materials, "recent" versions of unity implement material variants : like for prefabs, materials can inherit properties , so you can have a few "root" materials with your base settings, and multiple "child" one that only override, let say the color texture.
If for some reason you want to change the smoothness for all of them, you can just change it on the root one and if will propagate to all the children

[mystic sable]

how can i recreate gamecube style reflections with shader graph? i know its not super complex but im not good enough with shaders

the reflections work by taking a texture and stretching it across the object, it also uses the cameras position to move the texture accordingly

this is the texture being used for reference

if anyone has any ideas i would really appreciate it

[grizzled bolt]

I think they are what's called MatCap shaders, or a similar technique

[mystic sable]

yeah thats it, thanks dude

[autumn sigil]

I guess I'm not too worried about that, but it's good to know those options exist. I'm not trying to do anything too complicated just yet

I have a texture with pretty strong normals and am trying to reduce the "glint" from the smoothness

is there a clamp option for that?

It's all sparkly and I want that to stop

[grizzled bolt]

This usually happens when you have extremely strong normal mapping with extremely high smoothness values
You'll want to avoid both

[autumn sigil]

no way to keep the high normals? only way I'm getting the right shadows on the underside of my paint

[grizzled bolt]

If you just tone down the smoothness, maybe the issue will be solved without having to alter the normal mapping as well
Generally though visual glitches may ensue when trying to represent sharp 90° angles with normal maps

Let alone even more extreme angles

[autumn sigil]

how about smoothing the normals of a normal map, in SG? any way to go about doing that?

given that it's a paint shader I do kind of need the high smoothness. If I could alter the normals I'd happily do that

[grizzled bolt]

High smoothness alone isn't a problem, but combined with very sharp angles, steep normal map or otherwise "noisy" surface you get very random reflections per-pixel

If you already have normal map textures, it's probably more practical to get a smoother one than trying to smooth them in shader

Reducing normal map strength already smooths them to be more even, but doesn't blur or smudge them
Blurs and smudges in shaders are more complicated than with premade textures

[sinful magnet]

Hello shader people, i need help figuring out how to make the vision mesh around the player look more like "light" and also to not have such hard edges. Right now im using a shader that basically plays with opacity and a Fresnel effect, but i don't really like how it looks, any suggestions? I'd also like it to serve as a saturation filter, although im not sure if that is possible, thanks in advance!

Sorry for the bad quality*

[autumn sigil]

The thing is the normal map is coming from the paint splats the user is painting. The edges of the paint splats is blurred in SG and then that evidently is so fucked up that this is happening

I am thinking about trying to have two layers; one for the crisper texture and one for the smoother one

@grizzled bolt There's a way to just multiply the shadows or something, isn't there?

weak normals, but decreased RGB values or something for dark spots?

[grizzled bolt]

Not easily
I'd rather try doing fake shadows by darkening the texture near the relevant edges depending on normals

[finite barn]

hey, a couple questions...
-So I tried making a fire tornado, but for some reason I can't get it to glow, any ideas?
-second, the Color variable had an update, which kind of ruined it, and turned my bright orange effect into a mustardy-yellow (I fixed it by just using a copy of the old deprecated variable, but still) - is there any known fixes for this too, using the up to date variable?

I don't do a lot of work in VFX/Shaders, so I don't entirely know what to screenshot for relevance...

[grizzled bolt]

For a visual glow you need post processing bloom
I don't recall if VFX graph uses HDR color properties, but in any case HDR color intensity is what controls how much the material blooms
With Particle System I prefer custom particle shaders that reintroduce intensity variable to the color

Which just multiplies the color by a float

[autumn sigil]

You know how I'd use the Normal Map to darken the Base Color at the relevant spot?

[finite barn]

ah thanks 👍

[autumn sigil]

alternatively--is there a way to have the Bloom in Post Processing not target the texture? (I meant for my thing, not Armoraxis')

[grizzled bolt]

Well, a normal map separates each edge in tangent space by color, so that color could be overlayed as shadow on the texture, as long as you figure out which in tangent space is the right one after it's being applied in world space

[grizzled bolt]

Not easily
Post processing always processes the whole rendered image, so you'd have to render and composit the images entirely separately

[autumn sigil]

Is it actually possible in Shader Graph or would something else have to be used?

[grizzled bolt]

I'm sure it's possible
Wouldn't know the math exactly though without putting time in to figure it out

[autumn sigil]

I think I'm just turning off bloom for now '^_^

[autumn sigil]

there's got to be a way to get an object to not contribute to bloom though, isn't there?

I found a youtube video that purports to do just that

[grizzled bolt]

Nope, not without rendering multiple images

[autumn sigil]

how do I use one Float to plug into several different Material inputs? Some sort of Global variable and script?

like

if a material has "Tex3D" in the title, it gets that input?

[regal stag]

You can pass gobal properties using the Shader.SetGlobalX methods. https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Shader.html
The property name used there would be the "Reference" field of the property in Shader Graph. Would also need to untick Exposed.

[astral pecan]

Anyone know how to use this parallax uv?
https://twitter.com/SineVfx/status/1370336423300186114
Author showed how to get parallax uv, but I how to use them to get the same effect?

SineVFX (@SineVfx)

Simple crystal material with parallax effect.
#unity

▶ Play video

Twitter · Mar 12, 2021, 11:30 AM

I've created cavity maps, plugged it in, nothing happened.

[rotund apex]

Hey all! I have been having a bit of trouble with URP/shaders. I figured out what my issue is after posting in
#archived-lighting , but can't really figure out a solution on google. I have a tree asset from the asset store, and I have it urp/nature/seedtree8, this is the only shader that will correctly display the material. However, it does not correctly display shadows, as you can see in my recent post in #archived-lighting . Any help appreciated!

update: it appears I fixed it.... I'm not exactly sure how but it may have been upgrading materials to URP in that broad menu

[autumn sigil]

does anyone have a collection of textures they use to sample noise?

[autumn sigil]

untick? interesting

[autumn sigil]

Do you have a tutorial handy for your Splatoon paint SG? I'm trying to do something like that and having some luck but wanted to see how you did it

[regal stag]

I haven't written one but I can share some info/links.
I did a few methods, one "2D" which was drawing to a render texture and projecting that over the scene (basically sampling it using XZ of fragment position in world space, but remapped).
Also did a "3D" paint effect (could paint on walls too) which used baked GI to generate lightmap UVs. I found this video useful : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7HBxBfCsas (Bleeding-Edge Effects on Mobile)
Also since then this video has also been released, which uses the same techniques : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUWfHX_ZNCw (Splatoon - Painting Effect in Unity)

[vagrant bough]

Sorry for the late response!

Here are my settings exporting my model from blender as an .fbx
These are the two materials I'm trying to effect. Both of them use the same texture for their albedo. Both are attached to one object as with all the other textures.

Apologies if this isn't what you meant- As I said, I'm really new to all this

[compact drift]

Do I need URP or HDRP to make my own shaders?

[steel notch]

Any suggestions on how to render many, many lines all at once?

Like hundreds, enough where using line renderers is probably not the best move.

[slim skiff]

only if you want to use shader graph

[slim skiff]

what are you actually trying to do?

[steel notch]

render a bunch of lines to represent a network on nerve tracts

[slim skiff]

and it can't just be a mesh?

anyway probably vfx graph is the way to go for something like that if it's mostly visual and don't need mobile support

but it's going to depend a lot on how the lines are viewed and interacted with and what they need to do what the best solution is

[steel notch]

nah there's like hundreds to thousands of lines

[compact drift]

Oh okayy thank youu

I also have a doubt, why is my model transparent on one side. I modelled it in Blender

[astral pecan]

Check your normals

Or try select all faces in edit mode, and recalculate normals outside

[hexed moon]

thats not that many lines…

[steel notch]

You think just doing it with Line renderers is alright then?

[hexed moon]

and do you need to render these lines in 2d or 3d

[steel notch]

3D

[hexed moon]

just make a mesh

youll save yourself a lot of time and hassle

you could probably get away with using line render

but making a mesh isn’t difficult and if you want to texture it or write shaders for your mesh you can

https://catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/procedural-meshes/creating-a-mesh/

one of my favorite articles

they only go about how to generate a quad, but thats all you need to know

[hexed moon]

the transparency isnt a normals problem, normals only calculate how the light should bounce off of the surface.

Its actually a triangle winding order issue. Somethings probably wrong with your triangle indicies

[pearl frigate]

HELP! ^^
So currently i have this kind of ground in my game (see image). The issue is, that is a full 3d model currently, which is obviously causing ALOT of unnecessary vertices. I am thinking that it must be doable with a flat model with the texture and a displacement of some sort? How would i do that and keep the same effect?

I tried using a heightmap, but that looked... Groovy to say the least

I am on URP btw.

[amber saffron]

Flat texture, flat plane, parallax occlusion mapping node in the shader, with a heightmap

[pearl frigate]

Cool, i'll look into that! Thank you so much ^^

[quaint grotto]

How do you read stencil buffer in urp frag shader? I want to read the value then set a colour based on what the value is ranging from 0 to 4

[compact wadi]

noob to shaders here, can someone tell me how to fix this? The gravel merging with grass (red with green) doesn't look right

[low lichen]

Your mask texture is sRGB, but should be linear. Maybe that's contributing to this?

[distant dirge]

I mean to me it looks good

[grizzled bolt]

By default Unity culls backfaces, Blender does not
It does make meshes invisible on one side
Winding order matters only with a transparent shader for sorting faces within the mesh

[chilly marsh]

Shouldn t need to UV map What Remy is

[merry rose]

Im not 100% sure did this a bit long ago, but divide "c" by sum of mask.rgb, this should "normalize" the output to be the correct brightness

something like this in one liner "c /= mask.r+mask.g+mask.b;"

[steady reef]

I've got this node and a Color parameter.

How can I combine them together to have the Color from the parameter fill the black spaces?

I thought Add is going to work, but with a grey color it makes the green brighter

[shadow locust]

Maybe plug the output of this into a "Not" node to get a white mask for the black parts.
Multiply that mask by your external color
THen add that result to the original?

[steady reef]

The not node is a logic node. I can't plug that into it. It's for booleans etc. Or is there some other "not" node?

[shadow locust]

aren't booleans just 0 and 1 values?

I know it's logic but wouldn't it work here?

I assumed it would treat 0 as false and anything else as true

[steady reef]

What I mean is that I can't connect pink to purple

[shadow locust]

ok

you can use Step then probably

Trying to get ShaderGraph open in my project to try it lol

[steady reef]

Thanks

This is the whole thing rn

wait

why did I create that last one

I've got the same back there

lmao

Sorry, I might not fully know what I'm doing, because it's not my work. It's a group project and the person who made it is not available. I have to edit it.

Basically I've got two parameters - BrushColor and Starting Color. I have to "mix" them in a cow-like pattern.

[shadow locust]

like this?

[steady reef]

Looks like it. 😄 Let me try it out

[shadow locust]

here's a better screenshot of what I did

[steady reef]

Thanks 😄

It works great!

I've been thinking drawing parallels between this and photoshop. I looked for something that works like the Screen layer option in PS.

That solution was kinda out-of-the-box-thinking for me.

I got trapped in that box

[shadow locust]

For the record the Not node does work here the same way as Invert Colors, it just doesn't have a preview 😆

As does one minus!

[steady reef]

I tried connecting it

it didn't want to attach

[shadow locust]

really?

[steady reef]

oh

look

I tried attaching it to one with pink dots

You're attaching to blue

Step is binary

(i guess)

and pink is just values

[shadow locust]

I'm not sure if those colors mean anything

[steady reef]

you can't NOT a #FFFFFF

[shadow locust]

the colors just change as a gradient

as you go down the graph

[steady reef]

now get the pink one in the not

[shadow locust]

sure ya can!

[steady reef]

can't

[shadow locust]

well whatever

[steady reef]

The pink dot just doesn't attach to purple

[shadow locust]

oh it's because you're trying to plug a float4 in

I'm plugging a float(1) in

I plugged the oputput of the step function in (which is still a float(1))

you're plugging in the output of your multiply with the color(whichis a float4)

[steady reef]

What is a float(1) and float(4)

what is the difference?

[shadow locust]

think about float vs Vector4 in C# for example

float is one number

float4 is four numbers (the four color channels rgba)

[steady reef]

So step isn't binary because it has grey values too

[shadow locust]

well the output of the step is just 0s and 1s (in each channel)

but since the input is only one number

it's only outputting one number

If you plug it like Noise -> Step -> Not it will work

it's not until you multiply by the Color node that you expand to 3-4 channels

[hallow plover]

how can I loop over each element in a StructuredBuffer (ComputeBuffer) using a for loop in a compute shader?

[sacred stratus]

you set a variable for the length of the buffer

[steady reef]

I'm wondering though why when the same is done with a texture then the texture turns out brighter

The last two steps next to eachother

[shadow locust]

I don't think it's brighter - optical illusion possibly

lemme pull out my color picker

yeah color picker is showing the same colors

[steady reef]

lmao you're right

[shadow locust]

e.g. the brown is 4d170d on both sides

[steady reef]

I do have a brightening issue though too

greying out actually

[shadow locust]

compared to?

[steady reef]

The texture itself

[shadow locust]

well i mean what if you used a normal shader with that texture

do you not get the "greying"?

is that just lighting?

[steady reef]

nope

I can't set the underlying color to black

it's grey

I mean I can but it turns grey

Nevermind, I managed to make it right. 😄

I don't know how. I just started kind of from scratch. Thanks for the help, Praetor. 🙂

[lavish plaza]

Sorry if this is the wrong channel, I don't know what channel is a better fit for this.

I'm learning about projection matricies so I can commit some funny business in the game's camera. So far my matrix gets an accurate near and far clip plane with adjustable orthographic size, but I can't figure out how to add perspective. Code: https://pastebin.com/wDKbxyGb

I have a couple separate attempts to apply perspective commented out. Dividing by the tangent of the field of view is what tutorials are telling me to do, but this only seems to make my orthographic camera smaller when I try it.

[sacred stratus]

I once made a perspective camera in open gl, you basically multiply some matrices from a math library in the correct order

[lyric vortex]

Hello I'm trying to make a procedural skybox using shader graph. Here is my current result:
It works but I'm looking for a way to get a more shiny sun. Do you have any idea on how to do that ?

[hallow plover]

how do you do that?

[regal stag]

Depends how you're making the sun now, but if it's a Step, could use a Smoothstep instead.
I also like to multiply the sun mask by a value over 1 and use Bloom post processing.

[regal stag]

I think you can use GetDimensions on it to get it's length? I don't do a lot of compute stuff so not too sure.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/direct3dhlsl/sm5-object-structuredbuffer-getdimensions

[native elk]

Heyyy, is there a free asset for a water shader? (HDRP), if not can anyone help me make one since tutorials are to big for my small brain...

[tame topaz]

1. Look on the asset store

2. Nobody is going to provide you with free tech art. Respect people's time.

3. The latest version of Unity comes with a built in Ocean system for HDRP you can look at

[native elk]

1. The only assets are for URP and SRP

2. Sorry...

3. Cant use the newest version since my project is using 2019.3.5f1, and unity doesnt do good with upgrading projects to new versions, or atleast for me.

Thanks - Swivel

[tame topaz]

Then you're out of luck, outside of making your own.

[native elk]

Thanks.

found one. and its open source lol

[tame topaz]

Hopefully it still works 🤷‍♂️

[native elk]

it does

i got it to work

i initially had an issue where it wouldnt render but i fixed it when i found out it didnt import the subshadergraph

[quaint grotto]

how do you read the stencil buffer in a frag shader so you can output based on its value ?

eg :

if value == 1 : green ? value == 2 ? blue : red

all the examples i see seem to just compare to one value then either clip or draw which is kinda basic and not useful for my needs

[distant dirge]

I'm trying to make a shader for my terrain to not tile so bad, as you can see from the picture, the tiling is really bad. I was told you can make a shader to make the terrain tile nicely. Does anyone know how I can do this? The tiling really bothers me when looking in the game, and it would be nice to be able to turn the tiling scaling down for nicer looking details and normals

btw if I have to make my own shader id like to use shader graph if that is possible

[distant dirge]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLCgoI0oYUo, ok so following this tutorial, I tried to make his fancy rotation node, since he makes a terrain tiling fix shader, but when i try to scale, my texture gets warped? Any ideas to fix this?

In his video it just tiles

As you can see from the thumbnail, but unless i missed a step there isnt some magical tiling node that he has?

[hallow plover]

Thank you

[mental bone]

You might want to look into this https://github.com/keijiro/HexTileTest

[meager pelican]

You don't. At least not like you're thinking.
The stencil operations are filters...they decide if the frag function gets called or not.
To do what you're asking based on stencils you'd need multiple passes. Perhaps to make an accumulated texture to then later shade based on conditionals. Or multiple materials on one object, one for red, one for green, one for blue.

[quaint grotto]

Yeh I want texture based on conditional and different alpha. I'm shocked there isn't a way since it seems like a feature that would be quite useful

For many effects

[meager pelican]

There IS a way, just not with stencils.

Don't use a stencil if that's not what you want. Accumulate the data you want in a texture instead of in the stencil buffer.

[quaint grotto]

Is it not just a buffer of memory with values you'd think they could expose the value in frag

How do I do it in a texture

[meager pelican]

Depends on the platform you want.
Maybe research Multiple Render Targets.

[quaint grotto]

Well how many would I need

[meager pelican]

So as you're outputting "regular" stuff, you can be writing to a 2nd texture.

[quaint grotto]

Not sure what you mean by platform

[meager pelican]

Some mobile might not support MRT

[quaint grotto]

I need obstacles write a 1 and characters write a 2. So I need only an 8 bit r channel

Mrt??

[meager pelican]

Sure. That's one way that I can think of. Probably other ways.
MRT = multiple render targets.
https://forum.unity.com/threads/multiple-render-targets-in-urp.1068539/

GTG, work pays the bills. Good luck.

[quaint grotto]

@meager pelican when you get time to reply, is it possible to write to depth buffer's blue channel for these ids since I'm generating the depth buffer

Since it only uses the r channel for height values

[distant dirge]

I found the issue actually

My texture was clamp im assuming

[mental bone]

well sure but what I gave is a compactly different solution that works probably better

if you end goal is to remedy the repetition of the terrain texture that is

[tender tusk]

Hi, I am doing a water shader (using shader graph) and while the foam looks right when the mesh has a uniform scale of 1, it looks too stretched when the mesh has a x size of 200 and 1 along the other axis.. do you know any fix?

This is the shader (there are some subgraphs, don't know if you need also those)

[regal stag]

This happens as the noise is based on the UV coords stored in the mesh (UV0 channel is automatically used, can see in Tiling and Offset node)
A common way to keep the tiling consistent on planes like this is to use a projected / planar mapping instead. https://www.cyanilux.com/faq/#sg-planar-mapping
Would be the Position node, Swizzle to obtain XZ and connect to the UV port on that Tiling And Offset node.

[tender tusk]

Ok thanks, it works now! Even thought the depth fade sub graph that I made (to check the intersection of the water with other objects) has broken

Now it's like the water mesh collides with everything

This is the depth fade

[regal stag]

Is the graph type set to Transparent?

[tender tusk]

Oh ok.. now the only problem is that it seems to invert the foam with the water color

Ok I've made it work, thanks!

[distant dirge]

the solution he is working towards is the exact same as in that project from my very limited understanding

he is also making hex tiling

anyways quick question (not specifically for the guy i replied to lol)
im passing my sampled texture with UV modifications to the fragment shader, but it won't apply to the main preview. why is this is happening?

[wooden ermine]

Are unreal shader graph videos relevant for unity shader graph?

[eager folio]

Well, that entirely depends on how well you are able to translate the base concepts. A lot of things can be translated between them(though not everything.)

[wooden ermine]

I saw someone above link a series on unreal’s shader graph and the series looks awesome, but it is unreal specific. Are there any decent series like that for unity? Something that is more than just “let’s build some stuff” but more teaching the system as a whole as well. I’ve written a handful of shaders and shader graphs but could certainly benefit from something a little more educational

[regal stag]

If you're referring to Ben Cloward's series it looks like it also goes over a Unity Shader Graph example at the end? Either way it's still useful, most of the nodes are just math so isn't that engine-specific.
Though with the UV manipulation in particular ShaderGraph has Tiling And Offset and Rotate nodes which would handle that math for you.

[wooden ermine]

Correct. And that’s interesting. I’ll give it a look through and see how well I can follow it

[ancient drift]

Is there a way to make a shader that not only colors a specific part of the sprite but also allows that color to be a gradient?

[barren fox]

hey, im making a 2d pixel art water shader, and i need help. I have been following this video that showcases how it works and i would need something similiar to this except that i dont know how shaders work because im very new to this, i have most of the nodes copied exactly like he has in the video just dont know how to continue. Or I could just start over but I need help with:

• making the water transparent
• making the outline of the water
• making a wave system using the spring system thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXYBMTnTems&t=763s

[distant dirge]

it is not unreal specific lol

oh cyan mentioned that

[wooden ermine]

Oh I thought it was in unreal. The few parts I looked at were in unreal

[distant dirge]

Though with the UV manipulation in particular ShaderGraph has Tiling And Offset and Rotate nodes which would handle that math for you.
yeah he mentions that at the beginning of the whole UV thing that those nodes exist, he just wanted to show us the math behind it lol

[distant dirge]

yeah most of the tutorial is unreal, but the nodes are nearly identical between unreal and unity

[wooden ermine]

Ah awesome

[slow pilot]

SDoes anyone know how I could recreate my own shader that can take a directional light (the sun) and create an actual 2d sun I can adjust like the built in Procedural Skybox shader? I have a custom shader graph I made that I like. But I'd want to add that feature.

[distant dirge]

How would I go about converting my shader graph into a shader that can be applied to a terrain? What special features does a terrain material need?

[regal stag]

It should be possible with the Lit Graph, but probably not recommended. You'll usually get a warning in the terrain settings, saying the shader doesn't have a "TerrainCompatible" tag, that's not possible to fix in SG afaik but it could just be ignored.
If you need the splatmap / terrain layers, it's only possible to support 4 layers, but would use the same texture references (e.g. _Control, _Splat0 to _Splat3 etc).
(It's only possible for 4 layers, because normally a Terrain shader specifies multiple shader passes via Dependency shaderlab keyword but this isn't possible with SG)
Looking at the terrain shader code URP provides might also be helpful. https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/Graphics/tree/master/Packages/com.unity.render-pipelines.universal/Shaders/Terrain

[distant dirge]

not recommended by you or by the engine

[regal stag]

I mostly mean by the engine, like this is the warning you get.
But even so, I still use SG for terrain sometimes.

[distant dirge]

btw what is the splatmap

all i want

is normal and diffuse texture

[regal stag]

The terrain system allows you to paint different textures (for example like grass, dirt, sand, stone, whatever). The shader could support up to 4 of those layers, but not necessary if you just want the whole terrain to use a single texture.

[distant dirge]

how does the splatmap work?

[regal stag]

Can also blend between textures based on normals, which is useful to make cliffs appear as stone. Looking up "triplanar mapping" might gives some examples to that too.

[regal stag]

This isn't for a terrain specifically, but goes over the idea of splatmaps. https://catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/rendering/part-3/

[distant dirge]

can you read normals and textures from the splatmaps?

and like blending levels or whatever

idk exactly how the terrain texture layering works

because im def going to need multiple terraiun layers

ill read it later lol sorry im busy rn

[regal stag]

That tutorial should give the general idea. The splatmap is masking where each layer/texture should appear.
And each terrain layer usually has multiple textures, like albedo, normal and a mask texture (containing metallic, ambient occlusion, heightmap and smoothness).
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-TerrainLayer.html

[distant dirge]

ohhh ok ok

so my problem rn, is i have no idea how to get a reference to the terrain layer data, i understand the splatmaps now
Also i AM correct in assuming that as the terrain shader, its my job to process the splatmap, textures, normals, etc. right?

[regal stag]

Like I mentioned earlier would be texture references, _Control, _Splat0 to _Splat3, _Normal0 to _Normal3, etc. Can look at the TerrainLit.shader as an example. https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/Graphics/blob/master/Packages/com.unity.render-pipelines.universal/Shaders/Terrain/TerrainLit.shader
There's also functions in TerrainLitPasses.hlsl which may be useful to look at, to see how those textures are sampled & mixed together. https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/Graphics/blob/master/Packages/com.unity.render-pipelines.universal/Shaders/Terrain/TerrainLitPasses.hlsl

Technically, you don't have to process these textures unless you actually need the terrain painting.

[distant dirge]

but it is MY job if i want the painting?

i was looking at terrainlit earlier

[regal stag]

Yes, the shader is always responsible for calculating the pixel colour from it's materials inputs.

[distant dirge]

and i am not a shader expert so it looks bananas to me

[distant dirge]

yes

[meager pelican]

I'm not sure you can guarantee that, particularly if you also use stencils or motion vectors.
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/SL-CameraDepthTexture.html
And depth is encoded, and varies by platform.

Maybe you can tell us all here what you're trying to do in general and more importantly WHEN you want to do it? Like in a post processing pass, or after opaques are generated?

[quaint grotto]

im trying to draw vision cones based on depth and stencil buffers

[meager pelican]

Well, sounds like you have the 2 types defined, can you not "just' do two passes, one for each type?

[quaint grotto]

im not an expert with shaders so i have no idea. was just curious if i could read a stencil value in a single pass but apparently i cannot

[meager pelican]

Yeah, it doesn't work that way unfortunately.

[quaint grotto]

if it was in a different channel of the depth buffer like the blue channel so i had depth , stencilID

it would be all one pass

[meager pelican]

Oh, I get that much. Do all your platforms support multiple render targets?

[quaint grotto]

uh ?

i have no idea what platforms support it lol

[distant dirge]

@regal stag Also, how would I go about making the blending between hex tiles smoother? even with really low focus, there is still really sharp edges... ofc if you dont know its fine
first image is the weights for my tiling, and second is one of my hex channel outputs. Im assuming i want to blur the latter as well for better blending between textures. ALSO this entire question is based on the assumption that you understand the hex tiling method that was shown in the tutorial ive been following

[regal stag]

I'm not that familiar with the method, someone else will have to help here

[distant dirge]

ok a more simple question (hopefully)
is there a good way to blend softly between the red and green channels when i go to combine them?

hmmm idk if thats what i want to do actually

nvm

but yeah very clear hexagon tearing

[meager pelican]

Some mobile won't support it. If your platforms support deferred shading, they'd support MRT since that uses MRT. According to this:

Model 3.0 (or later) and support for Depth render textures
. Most PC graphics cards made after 2006 support deferred shading, starting with GeForce 8xxx, Radeon X2400, Intel G45.

On mobile, deferred shading is supported on all devices running at least OpenGL ES 3.0.```

But you may not need it at all!  I mean there might be other ways, I still can't really tell exactly what you want, but you could maybe use layers for each "type"?  And draw each layer with another camera with different shader globals?  Or something?  IDK, maybe ask the group 
```How do I support multiple colors for 'vision cones', for each object type``` or something.  I fell like I/we may be over complicating this, but I'm unsure of the exact nature of the beast.

@quaint grotto

[distant dirge]

hmmm, i tried downloading the solution you sent, but there are missing subgraphs that i cant find...

[split flicker]

Hello,
I tried to switch my unity to hdrp and then back to urp but I can't get it back to my original state.
This is what my scene looks like right now, thanks for your help.

[distant dirge]

OHHH ok i fixed the issue i was having, apparently you cant mess up the order of the output hex grid channels

i didnt know that lol, now it works, and damn it looks clean
unfortunately (unrelated) turning on my flashlight reduces fps by 40

[quaint grotto]

@meager pelicanlike this

i think they use stencil ids to determine what obstacle it is

[indigo ginkgo]

If I use custom vert attributes can I pack uints into the mesh to read in the shader?

[meager pelican]

Yes

[meager pelican]

OK, but that's On or Off. You can do that with a stencil, since the "off" is filtered out and the only thing you need is the "on".

But if you want TWO of them on the same screen, one red and one blue, you'll have to do two passes to do stencils...one pass for red and one for blue.

[quaint grotto]

I thought I need two because the ref decides if the frag is executed at all so I need one for solid green and one for textured no?

[meager pelican]

OK, "solid green" is one, and "textured" is two, sure.

[quaint grotto]

Okay so two passes is the best I can get out of this then

Unless you know a smarter way

[meager pelican]

Sounds like it. But the good news is that it's pretty fast filtering...happens at rasterization, the frag() is only called for the pixels that pass, and that's USUALLY where all the time is spent in a shader.

[quaint grotto]

Do you think I should skip using depth buffer to clip on obstacles and just use stencil

For both green, texture and clipped

That's 3 passes but no need to use depth buffer would that be more performant

[meager pelican]

Hmm....you have a separate pass for depth?

[quaint grotto]

Each npc has a camera that renders depth to target texture atm

And I pass that depth to the material

[meager pelican]

OK, so not scene depth from main camera, but sight-depth from custom camera.

[quaint grotto]

Yeah then I do mesh wp and depth to wp to determine if occluded

[meager pelican]

Sounds like a form of shadow casting, but in reverse.

[quaint grotto]

I dunno what that is don't do shaders much

[meager pelican]

https://catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/rendering/part-7/

[meager pelican]

@quaint grottoThere might be a "cheat" or optimization you can do for those NPCs.
If you add layers for "occluders" of any type, you could have a layer that has super-simple geometry for those objects with a lot of polygons....if you have them. IDK your scene.
So when you draw that depth-buffer, you'd use the super-simple geometry and NOT the complex geometry. For the visible cameras, they'd exclude that layer.

[quaint grotto]

I was planning to use simpler planes of geometry to represent the visual

[indigo ginkgo]

Any tips, I'm struggling a bit

[quaint grotto]

But can that be done if they aren't visually rendered

[indigo ginkgo]

Ive only been able to make streams of existing data types eg vector3

And I can't seem to have multiple streams, I can put everything into stream 1 so I'm sure I'm setting it correctly but it won't let me split it up over 2 streams

[meager pelican]

By "stream" you mean UV's on the mesh?

[indigo ginkgo]

Not quite

[meager pelican]

Each vertex on the mesh has a bunch of UV values that come across in the shader as UV0, UV1, etc. That's custom vertex attributes.

[indigo ginkgo]

https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Mesh.SetVertexBufferData.html

Oh

Why are they custom if they are built in

I thought custom would be new and anything I like

[meager pelican]

IDK, they're just not "stock" I guess. And the # of them has changed over time.
It's new and anything that you can pack into a float4

😉

[indigo ginkgo]

Having said that if I could make UV into a uint that would be great

[meager pelican]

Are you sure you really need to do that? What range do you need your uints in?

[indigo ginkgo]

I'm trying to bit pack data and the uvs as float32 is causing issues

[meager pelican]

OK

There's a way.

Second....

[indigo ginkgo]

Thanks 🙏

[split flicker]

No idea how I can fix this pls?

[indigo ginkgo]

Did you put your project on version control?

[meager pelican]

So the UV data is in a float4. That can make packing a 32 bit uint really easy. You could just put 8 or 16 bits of data into each float and put them together later using bitwise operations in the shader.

So you'd do

    uint packedG = uint(color.g * 255) << 8; // shift bits over 8 places
    uint packedB = uint(color.b * 255) << 16; // shift bits over 16 places
    uint packedA = uint(color.a * 255) << 24; // shift bits over 24 places
    uint packedColor = packedR + packedG + packedB + packedA;

(I shamelessly stole this from Ben Golus from this post: https://forum.unity.com/threads/encode-float4-rgba-to-uint.695176/)
That's storing 8 bits in each color channel. You can probably get away with 16 bits and only two operations rather than 4.

I think the post was about the other way around, but you get the general idea.

@indigo ginkgoYou're sure you need this per vertex?

[indigo ginkgo]

I can get the packing working but the data type is still fp32 isn't it?

[split flicker]

This question is for me?

[indigo ginkgo]

It's for baking material properties into the mesh so I can merge the meshs into one material and save drawcalls

I've got the texture combining part working ok

Maybe I should be doing some texture based lut...

[meager pelican]

IDK what "the" is...which you're referring to.
I mean, in the shader it's a float4.
that's 4 32 bit signed floats. (128 bits total)
In C#, it's also 4 floats.

[indigo ginkgo]

UV by default is vector2 of 2 fp32 values

I know I can make it vector4 but it breaks some stuff in the pipeline

[meager pelican]

Yeah, OK. Still 64 bits then.
But if you can use a texture, I'd do that. IMO.

[indigo ginkgo]

I suppose I'd like a quick fix for now

[meager pelican]

It depends on what you need. "Splat maps" and other such techniques are common.

[indigo ginkgo]

Which is making the fp32 a uint

[meager pelican]

Bust it up into two, and use bitwise operations.

[indigo ginkgo]

What does bust it up mean?

Sorry if this is a stupid question

I might be missing something simple

[meager pelican]

In C#, you want to encode a bit value, so you have some uint, yes?

[indigo ginkgo]

If I bit pack 8bit white or black into fp32 it ends up all 0000 or 1111 and that causes issues with sending the mesh data to the gpu

I think it counts as nan or infinity so the number gets lost

Yeah it's uint in c# but then it gets set back to fp32 when it's applied as uvs

[meager pelican]

And you need it per vertex

Not per material

[indigo ginkgo]

Yeah

[meager pelican]

How many bits did you say?

[indigo ginkgo]

128 lol

I'm using multiple UV channela

Float4 means 4 bytes?

[meager pelican]

No, float32's x 4

[indigo ginkgo]

So that's 128bits?

[meager pelican]

so 1 float4 is 128 bits total, 32x4 = 128

yeah

[indigo ginkgo]

Ah yeah

I assume you already know but posting anyway

https://images.app.goo.gl/eY3eevxzxJMxE3ab9

[meager pelican]

Yeah, that's a problem.

[indigo ginkgo]

Need to put baby to sleep

Will be back in a bit!

Thanks for the help

[meager pelican]

What I was suggesting is storing whole numbers in 4 floats 16 bits worth of precision, but that still only gets you to 64 bits in one float4.

That way you don't get a binary representation in the floats, the floats are just floats. The binary comes back OUT OF the conversion to the uint. Then you don't worry about NaNs and stuff.

[indigo ginkgo]

Oh I see

I think

[meager pelican]

Like reading a hex dump that is two bytes wide

So you'd have a float (maybe the .a part of a float4) that represents values 0 to 65535

And you'd have a float that represents the multiples of 65536 to whatever, etc.

[indigo ginkgo]

Will the whole numbers not fall foul of fp errors?

[meager pelican]

you're only storing 16 bits per float as a whole number. It can do that.

Because they're not binary, they're floating point whole numbers.

[indigo ginkgo]

Ahh

Was the code above doing that

Haha ok really gtg

Thanks again

[meager pelican]

If you wanted to store the value 0x00000000 00000000 00000001 00001111
in the float4, you'd store it as (0, 0, 1, 15) and in the shader you'd do
uint myInt = uint(uv5.a) + (uint(uv5.b) << 8) + (uint(uv5.g) << 16) + (uint(uv5.r) << 24);
But that's only for 32 bits, not 128 of the damn things.

But that's for storing 8 bit whole numbers.
Now if you put 16 bits worth of values into each float, you can double that to 64 bits encoded in a float4 and still I don't think you'll hit your Nan issue since you're only storing whole numbers and they range from 0 - 65535, which is easily represented in a float32. The trouble comes in when you try to store too much in one float32. It's signed and also has those special values.

You'll never stuff 32 bits of data into a float32 without hitting those values, as you've observed.

So it's probably easiest to use 16 bits of resolution.
and to do what you're asking you'd need TWO float4's....16 bits per channel x 4 channels x 2 floats = 128 bits.

[indigo ginkgo]

Ok she's asleep on my lap 😅

Yeah I see. I think I'll implement that then look at the splats

Splats is just a texture storing information?

Im baking materials to arrays so have the slice index saved in the mesh

I assume I can use that as a value to sample the splat

[meager pelican]

There is a texture format that is binary, but it maxes out at 64 bits.
Not all GPUs support all texture formats, be warned.
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/TextureFormat.RGBA64.html

[meager pelican]

Yeah, but that's not your 128 bits, right? Because you shouldn't need a 128 bit slice-index

[indigo ginkgo]

Yeah!

That's working fine as fp32

[barren fox]

hey, so I have been following brackey's tutorial on how to make an outline shader, but i cant really figure out why but the outline doesnt work like it just doesnt show itself in the subtract preview and when i apply the shader material to the object (this is a 2d project) its not even the color its supposed to be. Could anyone help me with this? (im a noob at shaders)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqpyXhBIRSw

[indigo ginkgo]

Thank you for all the help

Sorry it took me a while to understand 😅

[meager pelican]

It took me time to understand too, I mean it's hard to communicate that level of detail back and forth.
If you find a better method let me know.

[meager pelican]

Find a more recent tutorial. I love Bracky's but the shader graph stuff is too old now.
See here:
https://alexanderameye.github.io/notes/rendering-outlines/
https://bgolus.medium.com/the-quest-for-very-wide-outlines-ba82ed442cd9

[barren fox]

thanks

[indigo ginkgo]

At pc now & testing it out

I'm still very interested in knowing how the custom vertex attributes work too

but I guess that can wait

[covert bluff]

Hey everyone Im not sure should I post this here or in #archived-lighting but here we go

this is the model in unity

and this is how it should look like

what Im doing wrong why unity is polishing my model?

[grizzled bolt]

In lighting
The cause is ambient lighting, reflected sky and likely also smoothness defaulting to 0.5 when the materials are generated on import

[covert bluff]

is there any way to fix it? @grizzled bolt

[lyric copper]

Hey does anyone know of a shader that would work for VR hands that doesn't have the depth issue when making a fist. I just need to be able to fade it i and out

[meager pelican]

Also put a reflection probe into the center of the room (if only using one, or spread some around). Depending on the lighting settings you may have to bake lighting.

[covert bluff]

thanks for advice

[frigid vine]

Any idea how to achieve this look? At first glance I thought its simply unlit shader but the more I look at it the more little shadows I see, some how this picture seems lit and unlit at the same time lol

[teal breach]

I think unlit with AO might get you most of the way there - most of the 'shadows' occur near crevices on 3d objects (e.g. the tree blossoms)

Is there an easy way to rename a shader? If I change the name of a shader in the .shader file, but keep the files metadata the same, will Unity be clever enough to carry on using the renamed shader? (in particular, for assets in different projects)

[frigid vine]

that must be it you are right! thank you a lot sir

[grand jolt]

Does anyone happen to know why Parallax Occlusion Mapping doesn't seem to displace the material at all in scene view?

i can see the displacement happening in the preview but nothing happens in the actual scene, using the standard Parallax node works absolutely fine and shows the displacement in scene...

[sinful canopy]

Hey there, does anyone know how I could change the colour of only the white parts of the image on the top? Basically, I want the plant and dirt part to stay the same but I want the hand to be set to the colour that they player choses. As you can see in the image I tried doing a mask but it did nothing except cause a lot of weird glitches like the top of the leaves changing colour.

[grizzled bolt]

You'll probably want to Lerp the base map to the color using the mask as the Lerp factor, rather than multiply and add

[sinful canopy]

I figured out a really weird work around using a node called replace colour. It doesn't completely get rid of the white but from the way I'm using it it makes dark colours have white outlines which is nice. Thanks for the info though!

[regal stag]

The graph you posted would also work if you removed the hand from the first texture (leaving black pixels)

[tender tusk]

How could I make a 3D "dark fog" effect? I have some cars that exit from a tunnel that the player can't access (which is like a simple quad with a black png for the tunnel) and I would like to make the parts of the car that are still in the tunnel really dark.. something like a black fog inside the tunnel (I am using URP)

[simple violet]

you'd probably have to look into depth textures for that

or just use environment fog

[pine arch]

Hi ! I have basic (i think) shader graph question, given a grayscale texture (a Mask with one Channel basically) how can i remove values under x and over y ? For example a perfect black to white gradient and i only want what's between 0.4 ans 0.6, outside this range i need values to be replaced by 0

it sounds simple but i cant figure out what nodes combinaison to use

i tried playing around with step, smoothstep, clamp, lerp but at best i remove one side of my min/max but not both

[meager pelican]

That's because it's a two-step process. Step black to color, and then step color to black. With appropriate thresholds for each step function.

[thorn tapir]

how do I change the intensity of an HDR color via code?

[sly tapir]

for this on my draw distance influence where can I change the draw distance

[grizzled bolt]

Colors are in 0-1 range, HDR colors are colors multiplied by intensity value

[thorn tapir]

ah yea, I figured it out! but thanks~
https://giant.gfycat.com/PointedAggressiveEchidna.mp4

[dusky mulch]

Hey, maybe somebody knows how to solve shaders errors? These errors comes after I trying to built the project

[grizzled bolt]

@tender tusk Please do not crosspost

[tender tusk]

Ok deleting it

[calm mortar]

I know that lit shaders are affected by light and unlit shaders are not, but what is the difference between sprite shaders and the normal ones?

[grizzled bolt]

Sprite shaders would support sprite renderer features like masking and 2D lighting

[calm mortar]

ty! So If I would want a 2D sprite to be affected by a 3D spot light, I would need the lit shader graph?

Or is that not possible? since it's not working

And would it be possible to have light affect a raw image attached to a canvas?

I've been stuck on this for a while now

[grizzled bolt]

I assume so, though you must not be using the URP 2D Renderer since it flat out doesn't support any non-2D shaders for whatever reason
In my experience 3D shaders at least mostly work on sprites but I don't know what all of the drawbacks are
I haven't ever tried to get lighting onto canvas images or heard of anyone doing that, but I assume it'd be impractical, if even possible

[reef owl]

I'm having an issue setting global shader values: It seems like CommandBuffer.SetGlobalInteger doesn't work (or at least, it's value isn't being passed to the compute shader I'm targeting)

[chilly frost]

Hello I have a problem with a UV distortion effect, I can't do it correctly, it changes the scale of the texture and it comes out on the sides (I took example on a tutorial (https://portamedia.studio/quick-tip-simple-uv-distortion-in-unity-shader-graph/)
If someone can help me to make UV distortion in shader graph, thank you very much! ❤️

[regal stag]

Instead of the Lerp, take the noise output, Subtract 0.5, Multiply by Distortion Intensity, and Add with output of Tiling And Offset (or Offset input)

Also it works, but shouldn't need the Split and Combine at the top. Just multiplying the Panning and Time works fine (like you're already doing with distortion speed at the bottom)

[chilly frost]

thanks ❤️ I made the change, is that right? @regal stag

[regal stag]

I'd put the noise into the A port on the subtract node. But yeah looks okay. It's not doing the "scaling" anymore at least.
Though the result looks like it's shifting diagonally a bit, that might be because 0.5 isn't the average value of the noise, so may need to try some other values / alter texture ranges / import as non sRGB. Not sure.
Could also try a noise normal map / flow map instead. Or use Normal From Texture node.

May also want to scale down the original texture to give some padding to distort into, since if the texture goes outside the quad/mesh it won't be rendered. Can either do that by editing the texture, or do something like (UV - 0.5) * 0.9 + 0.5 + distortion as the UV.
Also if you don't want it to repeat, change Wrap mode on texture to Clamp (or attach a Sampler State node to Sampler port on sample)

[chilly frost]

I managed to get a result but I have to cheat with the values, I don't have much control. thank you! ❤️
I would be interested if you have links explaining how noise normal map, flow map, normal from texture node, staging these nodes / technique work. Maybe you talk about it on your website ? thanks @regal stag

[regal stag]

Looks good.
I just meant those as alternative ways to handle the distortion. e.g.

Though Normal From Texture samples the noise texture 3 times so is more expensive. But that could be swapped out for a proper normal map instead and then it's only one sample again.

I thought it might make the distortion look a bit better, as when you're adding with just the float/R output it's adding to both axis so only really distorting diagonally. While with a normal map it's distorting in all directions. But with strengths this small it's not noticeable anyway.

[chilly frost]

nice that gives me other variants thanks @regal stag ! I could even make the normal map myself to reduce costs (I guess)
And the flow map is this a technique that is done with a node scripter?

[regal stag]

Yeah flow map isn't built in, but would be something like this : https://catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/flow/texture-distortion/
Also example graph below.
But might not apply that well in this scenario, idk.
I mostly mentioned it because a flowmap texture is similar to a normal map but with just RG channels (which is all we need for texture distortion)

[chilly frost]

Thanks

[hasty depot]

I have a shader that does a kind of liquid possibility with particles but I need it rewritten is there a place to put up job offers like this

[glossy palm]

does anybody have any clue how i could come even close to creating an effect like this game in unity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yqSxMqHnOI

i have 0 experience in creating shading effects and dont even know what to research/look up for this sort of effect

its like gritty, grainy, but looks almost hand drawn/ink

[hushed wing]

Maybe some kind of thresholding effect, some noise, and some color quantization?

[slate heron]

Hello, I have an issue which I assume is shader related.
I have a single mesh as an fbx (it has animation), this fbx has several planes to form a 2D asset in 3D space.
I "baked" the alpha channel within the image texture I'm using for the model, a single atlas for the whole model.
Problem: I don't know why every time the meshes, all belonging to the same object (all the model is one single mesh), when overlapping one another, some parts of the topology disappear, like the hair for example.
What gives?
I send some images regarding my texture and my material settings.
Thanks

[jovial bough]

I'd like to prevent the time sine from going to zero or 1...any nodes that can help me with that?

[atomic jolt]

Trying to do the shader tutorial thing where you make the flag wave

And I’m pretty sure the tutorial is out dated because it just not work how they say it will work

[atomic jolt]

This is what I have down

[digital gust]

cant you share a screenshot instead of a shot of the screen? 😄

[regal stag]

Sorting of transparent objects is tricky.
But it looks like you don't need partial transparency, so should switch to Opaque but enable Alpha Clipping to clip/discard pixels below a certain threshold instead.

[regal stag]

It goes from -1 to 1. Perhaps you want to Remap it? Or just Clamp?

Depends what you are doing. Might be better to ask in #archived-urp though, this isn't really related to shaders.

[regal stag]

Looks fine from what I can see. But make sure the mesh you apply it to has enough vertices to displace, the correct orientation (since y axis is the one being displaced), vertices have an appropriate scaling, and UVs set up.
The default unity Plane mesh is probably a good one to test it on.
Make sure you also save the graph (button in top left).

[hollow wolf]

hi, i am working on VR dev as junior tech artist, i already learn shadergraph, and want to learn about compute shader, is it worth it? and what make it different? isnt it basically just make you have the ability to use GPU in almost everything?

[low lichen]

It's worth it if you intend to create custom rendering features that can run fast.

[hollow wolf]

i see, is there any other benefit?

i mean sure, it's very helpful but learning compute shader is definitely not easy

[grizzled bolt]

It's also useful in realtime and offline simulations
Any computational task that the GPU architecture is a good fit for (a huge number of small, repetitive calculations in parallel) so the possibilities of "what it's good for" are pretty much endless
I'd go googling for examples of what people usually do with it to get a better picture

[hollow wolf]

i see, thank for the information, i just want to make sure, because i already learn the basic of compute shader and it's very confusing

[grizzled bolt]

If your experience is with Shader Graph so far, you'll probably want to learn shader languages next

Compute Shaders are further ahead from those both

[gilded patrol]

hi

I installed a map to test, and here is the result nothing at all for the textures
the dev says that

Note: When importing the package I noticed
All the shader materials show up pink in
the project editor, Im still working on why
this would be. Though they all work fine in
scene as is and if you want to fix the pink
colour just reapply the shader to the
material.

before exporting it to FBX I would like to have the textures but I don't know how to do it

[grizzled bolt]

Check the package compatibility with your editor version and Render Pipeline

[gilded patrol]

that the problem ?

[grizzled bolt]

It could be a problem but you haven't really stated what you're trying to do or how
If the render pipeline is incompatible with the assets you'll need to change the assets or change your project
But is your goal to make a project work with a specific RP or the assets work with a specific RP

[gilded patrol]

idk just download unitypackage and i have only readme

______________________________________________
Note: When importing the package I noticed
All the shader materials show up pink in
the project editor, Im still working on why 
this would be. Though they all work fine in 
scene as is and if you want to fix the pink 
colour just reapply the shader to the
material.

https://elijahcobden.itch.io/stylized-nature-pack

[shy fiber]

what is simple noise on shader? is it perlin?

[regal stag]

If you're referring to the shader graph node, it's multiple layers/octaves of value noise.

[shy fiber]

Can i do it on CPU with unity mathematics?

i have it on my game. It has 2 colors and noise blends both for ground texture

Now i want to do the same for grass meshes

Set the grass mesh color based on same noise (for same world position)

Like this but i don`t use terrain

[limpid moss]

I'm trying to transfer Shader code from shadertoy.com to Unity, but when I transfer it to Unity I just get a black screen. I tried changing almost all variables in the functions to static, but that didn't work either.

I'm getting no errors in Unity either

[wooden ermine]

needed a fairly lightweight gore shader, pretty happy so far

any optimizations, please feel free to suggest, fairly new to shader graph

[limpid moss]

Not sure where I should paste my code

[wooden ermine]

on a mesh

[limpid moss]

https://hastebin.com/share/xosoyajaju.cpp

[autumn sigil]

Does anyone have any idea how much more processing intensive it is to render both sides in a shader? Do I need one-sided and two-sided variants?

[merry oak]

Is there anyway to make a shader in urp only replace the value on the stencil buffer if nothing is in front of it?

[distant dirge]

good questions that I have in addition to this, does the shader compiler automatically optimize stuff

like the C compiler does

[white cypress]

It basically doubles the geometry you're rendering so only use it when absolutely necessary

[unique oar]

Is it possible to edit another texture in an image effect shader? I tried to compile the following code in an image effect shader, but it gave me this error message Shader error in 'Hidden/TestShader': maximum UAV register index exceeded, target has 0 slots, manual bind to slot u1 failed at line 42 (on d3d11)

            uniform RWTexture2D<float4> _Tex2 : register(u1);

            fixed4 frag (v2f i) : SV_Target
            {
                fixed4 col = tex2D(_MainTex, i.uv);

                _Tex2[int2(i.uv * 1024.)] = col;

                return col;
            }```

At the moment, I'm just trying to set pixels in _Tex2 to pixels in _MainTex, just to see if I can edit a second texture using an image effect.

Trying the code without the : register(u1) part yields this error message: Shader error in 'Hidden/TestShader': maximum ps_4_0 UAV register index (0) exceeded - note that the target doesn't support UAVs at line 42 (on d3d11)

[astral pecan]

Is there a way to convert flat image to distance?
Like this:

[onyx talon]

http://www.lems.brown.edu/vision/people/leymarie/Refs/CompVision/DT/DTpaper.pdf

This may help you

[astral pecan]

For some reason I can't access it at all

[astral pecan]

Did the link change?

Cannot find that paper on Filter:LeymarieF

https://vision.lems.brown.edu/publications

[daring nebula]

Hi all, I would like to create a fade effect on the edge of a sprite mask, after some research I saw that it could be possible with Unlit Shader Graph but I am completely lost... If you have a solution to create a fade effect I'm interested!

[astral pecan]

Plug this in to your Alpha

Swap noise with your texture

Swap time with your float fadeTime (0 to 1)

[grizzled bolt]

Not just with shaders, but there are tools such as this
https://catlikecoding.com/sdf-toolkit/

[daring nebula]

Thanks for your answer I tried to implement it but unfortunately my level on shader is close to negative 🥲 I finally found an asset on the asset store that does what I wanted.

[astral pecan]

Its a procedural map, ideally it could be done in shader if possible.

I am thinking of expanding the shape, then use shader graph's distance(original, expanded)

But expanding it is a challenge too while keeping sharpness

Or maybe adding distance to edge

[grizzled bolt]

Distance is just the difference of two values

Fragment shaders don't really have knowledge of adjacent pixels so it's not a trivial problem at all

https://www.shadertoy.com/view/4syGWK something like what's done here may work but it's beyond me

[astral pecan]

Ah, so its like blur

How do I pass down array in HLSL?
I am getting syntax error.

float SomeMethod(float2 UV, float2[] vertices) // syntax error: unexpected token '['
{
}

[grizzled bolt]

@astral pecan https://iquilezles.org/articles/distfunctions/ since your shape is procedural, another option is to describe the shape itself with an SDF function so you don't need to try to generate it afterwards

[thin crater]

Hi guys, does anyone know what I have to do in order to make my shaders work with deferred setting in URP?

I found basically nothing online 😦

[grizzled bolt]

Your first option should be to make the shaders in Shader Graph so it'll take care of that
If that's not an option I believe this guide is the best one out there https://www.cyanilux.com/tutorials/urp-shader-code/ also goes over deferred rendering

[thin crater]

uh already done that, I've got all my shaders done in shader graph (with few lines of code for custom functions in hlsl). But this doesn't seems to change anything

for example: if I have a plane with my shader, and I place 10 lights above that, the lights shown will be maximum the number set in the URP setting asset, as if the rendering was NOT set to deferred (it is). But if in the same scene, with the same lights, I place a URP lit shader into a plane (or that same plane), then the plane will take all the ten lights, ignoring the lights limit, as it should with deferred.

So I guess it must be a problem with my shaders, still linked to the lights limit.

[grizzled bolt]

The likely explanation is that the shader is transparent

Is it?

[thin crater]

some of them, yes

but not the terrain (the plane where I tested)

it's... unlit, also

thye're all unlit - maybe that's the problem?

I also use custom lighting to apply additional lights, from a script taken from a video online and slightly modified:

however I can't find any reference to a forward renderer or a light limit... so...

[grizzled bolt]

The shader would have to implement deferred lights as well to support them, I expect

Deferred rendering also doesn't support transparent materials at all

[thin crater]

if the transparent objects behave as in the forward renderer, then it's a smaller problem (it would be bad in rare cases, but not in most of them)

but... it behaves in the same way with opaque objects, like the terrain

and that's a huge problem

[thin crater]

so, any guide to implement that..? I really found nothing online

No videos, no recent forum posts...

[grizzled bolt]

The one I linked is probably the closest there is

[thin crater]

okay ty

didn't see it mentioned deferred sorry

[grizzled bolt]

Transparents fall back to forward rendering

[indigo ginkgo]

can unity surface shaders find out the dimensions of a texture?

[amber saffron]

By using the HLSL GetDimensions function : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/direct3dhlsl/dx-graphics-hlsl-to-getdimensions

[indigo ginkgo]

thank you!

I just found this too, https://answers.unity.com/questions/678193/is-it-possible-to-access-the-dimensions-of-a-textu.html

I'd tried before but not declared it so it wasnt working

[amber saffron]

Tried also the |TextureName]_TexelSize macro ? https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/SL-PropertiesInPrograms.html

[indigo ginkgo]

I think thats the same 🤔

do you know which one would be best?

I've got another question, I'm baking some textures to use as LUTs

[amber saffron]

@thin crater @grizzled bolt Custom lighting can't be done in deferred, as the shading/lighting is done in a specific pass after GBuffers. All you can do is alter how the GBuffers are filled.

Unless you want to dig into the URP code and add some branching in the deferred rendering funcion

[indigo ginkgo]

but I'm not sure what to do with regards to them be power of 2 textures

for example a LUT texture might be 12 x 72

[amber saffron]

Maybe the macro is easier to use, as it is declared more or less automatically

[indigo ginkgo]

will do that then, thank you!

[amber saffron]

So ... 6 times a 12x12 texture ?

[indigo ginkgo]

🤔

the result depends on what data I feed to the c# code

[amber saffron]

I'm just trying to understand the LUT format here ^^

[indigo ginkgo]

oh its not the colour grading luts

Im just storing data in rgb values

to use in the shader

[amber saffron]

But worst case, you can just use it as uncompressed not power of 2 textures.
It is small enought to not have a big memory footprint, and you probably want uncompressed anyway to avoid loosing data

[indigo ginkgo]

yeah def uncompressed

I'm not 100% sure what happens to uncompressed non power if 2 textures, do they still get sent to the video card?

or do uncompressed textures not need to be power of 2

[amber saffron]

Yes, they still get to the video card 🙂
IIRC, it's more about memory optimisation, as a non PoT texture won't allow to fill the video memory as efficiently as only PoT ones

[thin crater]

So is there a way to code a shader graph that works with deferred setting on?

[amber saffron]

Technically, yes, but not without modifying URP source code
Or if you only want to alter the GBuffers (understand PBR surface properties), it should be fairly straightforward

[indigo ginkgo]

thank you Remy you've been a big help

[thin crater]

Uhm... And if I want to have unlimited lights per object with a custom shader? Is it straightforward? Are there docs?

My problem is just the light limit per-object, having a huge terrain chunk limits the number of lights that can be placed above it, to 8

And that's a big problem, some mobs will have lights on them, and the player might want to build more than 8 light sources in a single chunk..

[astral pecan]

Anyone know how to get colors like this?

Why my results looking so bad

😭

[grizzled bolt]

New versions of URP have forward+ rendering path which may work with custom lit shaders, though I'm not familiar with it

[thin crater]

I've got URP 13.1.8, seems to be the latest. I'm also using Unity 2022.1.3f1, if needed I'll try to upgrade to Unity 2022.2.10f1, that's the latest 2022 build.

[grizzled bolt]

Forward+ is in 2022.2 Beta, URP 14

[amber saffron]

How about using a gradient or a 1D texture ramp to control the colors ?

[thin crater]

Does it have a maximum light count?

is that a beta? I can't find any 2022 beta, only 2023 beta

[amber saffron]

2022.2 is out of beta

[thin crater]

so it has not URP 14 with forward+, right?

[amber saffron]

It does : https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.render-pipelines.universal@14.0/manual/rendering/forward-plus-rendering-path.html

[grizzled bolt]

I mean 2022.2 beta was when the feature was released

[amber saffron]

As you can see on the doc page, there is still light limit, per camera

[thin crater]

oh man, so it would fix my problem! Thank you!!

Now the problem is upgrading, last time I tried that I had many, many errors and I had no clue on how to fix them 😅 but that's another topic

thanks a lot @grizzled bolt @amber saffron

[thin crater]

it's 256, pretty high, and if the lights that are not in the camera range don't count then it's not a problem (what I mean: if I have 400 lights in the scene but only 200 are in front of the camera and they're all rendered, then it's not a problem for me... but also with 256 lights per camera, breaking this limit will be pretty hard)

[lunar valley]

Experimenting with some post prossesing god ray shader, but for some reason these black dots start to appear and I don't know why. ```cs
fixed4 col = tex2D(_MainTex, i.uv);
float2 texCoord = i.uv;
float2 deltaTexCoord = (texCoord - ComputeScreenPos(float4(SunPos.xyz, 0)).xz);
deltaTexCoord *= 1.0f / NUM_SAMPLES * Density;

            float3 color = tex2D(_MainTex, texCoord);
            float illuminationDecay = 1.0f;

            for (int i = 0; i < NUM_SAMPLES; i++) 
            {
                texCoord -= deltaTexCoord;
                fixed4 s = tex2D(_MainTex, texCoord);
                s *= illuminationDecay * Weight;
                color += s;
                illuminationDecay *= Decay;
            }
            return float4(color * Exposure, 1);```

[unique oar]

still looking for help on this. I tried using #pragma target 4.5, and it got rid of the error message, but I'm still unable to modify the pixels on _Tex2.

[unique oar]

by the way I made something that looks similar to what you're looking for

I did this by taking each pixel's distance to a point and setting its brightness based on a function that looks like this.

In order to make it separate into bands of red, green, and blue, I just multiplied the input of the function above by a number between 0 and 1 for each color channel, with the number being less for green and even less for blue, like so:

hope that all makes sense 😄

here's the function I'm using btw, it doesn't have to be exactly this, this is just what I decided on in the moment lol

[karmic hatch]

i love desmos :)

[thin crater]

I upgraded to new URP 14, and it has Forward+! However, there's still a problem: lights flicker a lot, and it's not really usable

They flicker like that: https://forum.unity.com/threads/urp-forward-lights-flickering.1373658/

That's my project; it flickers so hard I should put a graphic warning

[astral pecan]

Thanks, I was able to produce similar results as well!

[grizzled bolt]

Well, since others are having the issue at least it's not specific to your project, and probably will be getting fixed
Maybe filing a bug report of it will give them more data to work with

[thin crater]

but not everyone is having it 😦

so maybe there's a workaround

also, it only does it with my custom shaders, not with lit/unlit URP shaders

[low lichen]

Custom shaders made with Shader Graph?

[thin crater]

yes

and a bit of hlsl code

that's where I calculate additional lights

[grizzled bolt]

That could be another reason to file a bug report, so they can potentially update the system to support custom lighting Graphs

[thin crater]

I have no clue how to file a bug report 😦 I'll look for it

[grizzled bolt]

Maybe it's intended to work with the hlsl lighting functions, maybe not
But it's worth doing anyhow

[thin crater]

but I need a solution.... if there's one, maybe I'm still getting something wrong

[thin crater]

maybe I'm using something outdated

[grizzled bolt]

Also, sometimes stuff just breaks when you upgrade a lot
It's best to make a repro project just showing the issue for the bug report, and by doing that you'll also confirm if the problem carries over to a freshly created project

[low lichen]

Did the Shader Graph package update automatically when you updated Unity/URP?

[grizzled bolt]

If it doesn't carry over and you can't reproduce the problem, that means you have the means to work around the bug yourself

[drifting hollow]

Why is there no "Create > Shader > Empty HLSL"... or similar?
How are we supposed to create HLSL shaders from within the Unity interface?

[low lichen]

You mean something like "Create > Shader > Unlit Shader", but one that uses HLSL instead of CG?

[drifting hollow]

no, a button to just create an empty HLSL text document
cause I'm lazy

[low lichen]

That is very lazy indeed. Is it not convenient for you to create these files in your IDE?

[drifting hollow]

I'd rather do it in Unity & double click to open up - that's what I do for everything else

don't wanna have to browse for the correct file path of my project in the "save as" menu

maybe Unity editor scripts can help me out with that
edit: ye, I'll just do it with editor scripts, seems very doable

[low lichen]

Well, you can always create you own menu items:

[MenuItem("Assets/Create/Shader/Empty HLSL", false, 1)]
private static void CreateNewAsset()
{
    ProjectWindowUtil.CreateAssetWithContent(
        "Empty.hlsl",
        string.Empty);
}

[drifting hollow]

yep, thanks

[split flicker]

Hello :),
i am facing some weird behavior with my shader, when i put it on plane i am getting some whole midle , as you can see on second pic wireframed one edge is disolved, Any idea to solve it plz?

[hushed dune]

Can somebody tell me why im getting this error?

Im using a lit shader graph as part of the URP

im using a custom function with the following code https://pastebin.pl/view/829a15ef

I dont understand why its not working, I tried following the tutorial and then just copy pasting from the patreon directly and both dont work

[brittle latch]

how can i use a image on gameobject which is invisible so I see only the image in the game (its a bullet impact)

[dim yoke]

I dont quite understand. Why dont you use decals?

[brittle latch]

sorry i'm a beginner whats this?

I want that if i shoot with my weapon, the image of the bullet impact is shown in the game

[grizzled bolt]

It does sound like you're describing decals

[brittle latch]

how to use them i cant put the image on an empty gameobject

[grizzled bolt]

Search online for Unity's decal systems, see if they fit your needs

[civic lantern]

Not sure how decal works if there's no renderer to project it on

Having a fully transparent renderer and enabling Affects Transparent in the decal projector settings would work, In HDRP at least

They mentioned that the other gameobject is invisible, in case you missed that

[grizzled bolt]

Could also be looking for sprite masking
Hard to say

[civic lantern]

Right, I didnt even consider 2D

[hushed dune]

anybody have any idea on why this is happening

[slim steppe]

It says it's at line 193, it might just be so far down you havent even checked there

[lean lotus]

Does #pragma multi_compile not allow global variables in compute shaders?

trying to use it to define a texture as a float2 vs it being a float4array(built in motion vector vs hdrp motion vector texture)

[lunar valley]

if somebody knows something?

[hushed dune]

i have like 36 lines of code

it takes me to the unity code manager or smth like that

[slim steppe]

Yeah, but you might've just coppied the upper part or something like that

[hushed dune]

i downloaded the file from thje patrion

[slim steppe]

Might be something completely different tho

[hushed dune]

and the shader graphh

[hushed dune]

yeah I downlaoded all the materials they used for the tut and made sure to hook everything up and it doesn't work

[grand jolt]

hello, im new to hlsl. Im trying to make a shader that takes height map information and uses it as a mask for a texture. Any help on this or if you can point me in the right direction . Thanks

[hushed dune]

I forgot to put the URP as the pipeline to use for rendering

i spent 3 hours trying to figure that out

[slim steppe]

I feel u lmao

[thin crater]

Hi! As I said in some previous messages, I upgraded to Unity 2022.2.10f1 and URP 14. My goal was to use Forward+ in the settings so my custom shaders could use an (almost) unlimited light count on them.

But the problem is that when I enable Forward+, the lights starts to flicker.

Digging into the problem I created a fresh new project (so if it's a bug I can report it), and I imported all my shaders. I managed to create a minimal shader with just the bare minimum to be shown and reproduced the bug.

So, this is my current shader.

The problem seems to be in the CalculateLightingRamp subgraph.

This is the subgraph.

(if it's not clear, it's the second node in the main shader)

I've noticed that if I link the main light diffuse to this CalculateLightingRamp node, the cube flickers like in my main project. But if I set a constant value - like light intensity, or just a float static value - then the cube with the shader will not flicker anymore (but will have only one light everywhere in the cube, as if the light came from every side of the block).

This is the calculateMainLight subgraph, if you want to see how I calculate the diffuse value

And that's the custom function

I have absolutely no clue if that's a bug, or if it's intended to be, because docs for Forward+ is very scarce and very few posts have been created for it 😦

[grizzled bolt]

Make sure to include that info in the bug report summary
I doubt many here can help with that
The number of people who've tried to use custom lighting with URP's forward+ renderer so far might very well be in the single digits globally

[thin crater]

that makes me feel somewhat special ahahah

I'll report that now, hoping to get some help

[grand jolt]

Im using a height map, and "catching" certain ranges of 0 - 1 values. Im trying to blend in and out from that range. my goal is the second image or atleast something similiar

The first image is what i have so far. Looking for hlsl solution . im using URP

[regal stag]

It sounds like the problem is with the Diffuse, not the lighting ramp then. I would test each part of the diffuse calculation. Check the outputs of the CalculateMainLight on their own - see if the direction flickers, or distance atten, or shadow atten.

[thin crater]

any advice on how to do it? I'm not good at all with hlsl 😦

I also thought the problem could be on diffuse, but I was not sure....

[grand jolt]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4PHFnvMzFc&list=RDCMUC7M-Wz4zK8oikt6ATcoTwBA&index=6 @thin crater good information on hlsl , if this video doesnt have it one of her other ones will most likely contain what you need

covers some lighting/shader stuff in depth

[merry oak]

Is there anyway to make a shader in urp that only replaces the value on the stencil buffer if nothing is in front of it?

[regal stag]

Output each of those ports to the Base Color, might be easiest to copy it inside the main graph to do that). That's usually the easiest way to start debugging a shader

[regal stag]

As long as the shader is rendered after other objects, and uses ZTest LEqual it should do that