archived-shaders

[meager pelican]

But you won't see the 3 layers well unless they're different overlays. like in your (goal) pic...there's different colors blended.

[indigo frost]

I'm not sure how to do that

[meager pelican]

And you could use the same Voronoi texture with different tiling/offset speeds and values or you could use a different one, and sample it 3 times, and blend the colors before you plug it into the stack.

Think of it as doing this same thing 3 times, and blending it. How you blend it is up to you. Maths.

You could average them. Or you could just multiply them all by .333333 and additive or whatever.

I'm going off the cuff here, because I'm not running it, you are.

But .... It's 3 different samples. Right now you have one. The thing is, that you only get one light calc since it is doing it for you behind the scenes.

If you use unlit, you'd have 3 different calcs for the 3 different results.

[indigo frost]

Okay

I'll try to figure it out

Thank you for everything

[meager pelican]

IDK if I helped or hurt. Lol. There's no one perfect answer, particularly when you're trying to recreate an effect that you don't have source too. But it's all good because it's all learning and experiment.

Good luck.

[indigo frost]

ty

[meager pelican]

Welcome.
And if you go unlit, the light calc you probably want is the good ole "N dot L" calc (Google it).
🙂

[grand jolt]

Hello, I need to apply a shader to a big scene full of different shaders and materials.
Is there a healthy and practical way of doing that?
or is there a way of using multiple shaders at the same time ?

@half remnant hey, maybe you can set the direction property of the shader depending on the player's location or the view direction. Maybe you can do it by checking the direction to the planet's centre.

I'm using an asset too, and the thing is that the scene is enormous and most of the objects use the same material. but some of the objects cause some issues. so I can't just switch the shader.

[hidden anvil]

I am making a shadow/lighting system for my game, meaning it will have to be run a lot all the time, but i dont know how to code compute shader language. should i learn it, or stick with a c# script?

[rare charm]

Shader "Custom/MonochromeFilter"
{
    Properties
    {
        _Alpha ("Alpha", range(0.0, 1.0)) = 1.0
    }

    SubShader
    {
        Tags { "Queue" = "Transparent" }

        GrabPass
        {
            "_BackgroundTexture"
        }

        Pass
        {
            CGPROGRAM
            #pragma vertex vert
            #pragma fragment frag
            #include "UnityCG.cginc"

            uniform float _Alpha;
            uniform float4 _Color;
            sampler2D _BackgroundTexture;

            struct v2f
            {
                float4 grabPos : TEXCOORD0;
                float4 pos : SV_POSITION;
            };

            v2f vert(appdata_base v) {
                v2f o;
                o.pos = UnityObjectToClipPos(v.vertex);
                o.grabPos = ComputeGrabScreenPos(o.pos);
                return o;
            }


            half4 frag(v2f i) : SV_Target
            {
                half4 bgcolor = tex2Dproj(_BackgroundTexture, i.grabPos);
                bgcolor.a = _Alpha;
                float avg = (bgcolor.r + bgcolor.g + bgcolor.b) / 3.5;
                bgcolor.rgb = float3(avg, avg, avg);
                return bgcolor;
            }
            ENDCG
        }

    }
}

Anyone know why the _Alpha isn't working. It looks exactly the same no matter what I set it to.

[lean lotus]

What programs/tools would u guys recommend for helping to optimize and/or debug unity compute shaders? some things I do that would make me think would improve performance end up reducing it and idk why

[vale cypress]

Hi, are there any known issues regarding compute shaders and hardware? I am running a gtx 770 and an i7-2600k and I can't seem to get my compute shader working properly (it works when there is just one texture). On my laptop with much newer hardware (1660ti), it works perfectly

[hearty stump]

@rare charm i do think it's because of the texture you get from the grab pass

[ionic flame]

Hello everyone i was wondering if it was possible to replicate Unity's baked lightmaps through shader code

Unity handles baked lightmaps through UV2

But i need more than that

I am making a Source engine map loader and lightmaps are often split into "pages"

Which are addittively applied on top of eachother

This means that technically a map object can use more than one lightmap textures

I'm sorry if this is a no-brainer question i have never written a shader in my life and just trying to see if its possible

[shadow locust]

If your question is essentially "can a shader affect the lighting of my object based on one or more provided texture", then the answer is unequivocally yes.

[ionic flame]

That's more or so my question yeah

But can i process the texture the way unity does its baked lightmaps?

That's what's stuck on my mind

Like if i could apply a lightmap texture on object through the shader the way Unity applies a normal quality lightmap

That would be awesome

[hidden anvil]

how do i use a shader to darken/lighten my sprite (2D)

i want to add X shader, thereby making it lighter. Later, I want to add Y shader, making it darker

actually that wouldnt work for what im trying to do i think

[hearty stump]

@hidden anvil you can achieve all of that just using one shader.
Fragment and vertex shader with a color , texture sampler and range value between 0 and 1 proprieties
And use a lerp or def condition to darken or lighting your sampler texture based on the range value

[hidden anvil]

even with a shader changing the color, i cant seem to get the actual color of the sprite to change at all.

The only thing that has any effect is changing the material color. I think i will try to use this instead

[hearty stump]

It's the same the only difference is the calculation you perform on your custom shader

[meager pelican]

@rare charmWeird. Just on a SWAG, are you outputting to a render texture without alpha channel?

P.S.
Check out this notation:
bgcolor.rgb = avg.xxx;
I lol every time I do that.

Probably doesn't matter, compiler optimizer probably makes both equivalent.

But it's easy to type.

@ionic flameYou may have to roll your own custom lighting solution. And how/if you do that would depend on what pipeline you're working in.

[meager pelican]

@rare charmAnother thing, try debugging/output the _Alpha value as a color.
like "bgcolor.rgb = _Alpha.xxx" and see if you're setting it on the instance of the material you think you're setting it on. (confirm it's passing through from the inspector to the shader).

[full sail]

anybody know if there's a neat way to "sample" a gradient in hlsl?

I have my stepped WS coords

and my gradient

gradient is just generated by the UVs so in my head I feel like I need a way to convert from WS to UV coords

but that seems pretty nuts

to do in the fragment

not uh.. not really what I'm going for -- I'm trying to step the bottom gradient, with ws aligned steps

perhaps sample was a poor choice of words

no problem!

close to what I'm trying to do I guess

I've got the WS through v2f, i'm rounding it etc - just using it to drive a gradient along the local geometry's UV is the issue

but I guess I could just do it all in WS

and abandone trying to use the mesh uv

alright yeah - going to do that i reckon, thanks

was trying to over engineer it I think

[rustic dagger]

Hi! I got an annoying issue with surface shaders, transparencies, and render target textures:
I am trying to render a semi-transparent object against a 0% alpha background and save that to a texture. this works fine for normal vertex/frag shaders, but when I use a surface shader it's like it applies its own cutoff to the final result. this doesn't happen if I use the built-in Standard shader in transparency modes.

I tried to include the 'keepalpha' keyword just in case, but it had no effect. I tried enforcing my alpha in a custom lighting function, and also in a finalcolor function, but it still gets zeroed out.

Does anyone know how to fix this without me having to rewrite my shader in a vertex/frag setup?

[hidden anvil]

i am using the URP for my game, and would like to have complete darkness. For some reason, there is a sort of global light coming from somewhere and brightening everything up. How do I find this light to fix it?

[rustic dagger]

shade lenses are using my surface shader
cube is using standard shader

[rustic dagger]

seems like a #archived-hdrp question, no?

[hidden anvil]

ah yes sorry

[onyx cloud]

how do i generate a 2d noise texture?

also where can i find documentation/tutorials for this stuff?

[timid minnow]

I'm using HDRP, and enjoying the distortion effects you can do with it a lot. I'm trying to figure out if it's suitable for an edge motion blur kind of effect like seen commonly in racing games... or perhaps I can do something using the motion vectors?

[rustic dagger]

unity doesn't really come with an easy way to make smooth noises (if that's what you're after). i've had great success using Simplex Noise.

[onyx cloud]

that's fine, but how do i generate that?

[rustic dagger]

https://catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/simplex-noise/

quick google found that 🙂

[onyx cloud]

oh ok

[rustic dagger]

it kinda just looks like radial blur to me

[timid minnow]

Right, how would that be accomplished?

[rustic dagger]

here's a 2 y/o tutorial: http://halisavakis.com/my-take-on-shaders-radial-blur/

actually almost 3 years now. heh

[timid minnow]

Is this not accomplish-able somehow using the already existing motion vector data?

[rustic dagger]

radial blurs like this are usually independent of scene motion data, and often even depth isn't really used, either.

the idea is to basically smear colors outwards. the closer you are to the center of the frame, the tighter your sample spread

[timid minnow]

That makes sense to me, it's just the tutorial you shared has some language that concerns me about performance

and since I already am using motion vectors/blur, it would seem like there might be a way to hook into that and just amplify the intensity around the edges... but perhaps not

Even the person who made that tutorial seems to indicate this may be possible (unless I am misreading in some way)

[rustic dagger]

if you already have motion blur, i suppose it could be possible to just multiply the camera's own motion vector in the whole math. i don't know how well that would work, though.

[timid minnow]

Right, that'd be something I'd definitely be interested in trying

[rustic dagger]

i mean by a scalar

because it's already adding to every per-vertex motion vector

[mental bone]

So I'm having a bit of a conundrum. I'm trying to make a custom shader compatible with the SRP batcher. In order for that to work I need to put the shader properties in a CBuffer called UnityPerMaterial. Now the main part of the custom shader has a ton of properties. Problem is that before including that part LitInput.hlsl from URP is included and in there it has that CBuffer already declared with these properties

float4 _BaseMap_ST;
half4 _BaseColor;
half4 _SpecColor;
half4 _EmissionColor;
half _Cutoff;
half _Smoothness;
half _Metallic;
half _BumpScale;
half _OcclusionStrength;```  
Now if I do something like this in the body of the custom shader : 

CBUFFER_START(UnityPerMaterial)
float4 _Color;
half4 test1;
half4 test2;
half test3;
half test4;
half test5;
half test7;
half test8;
half test9;
half test10;
half test11;
half test12;
//
CBUFFER_END It compiles fine . How ever if I put a single other property that already existed for examplefloat4 _1st_ShadeColorinto the buffer I get Assertion failed on expression: 'm_BuffersToBind[shaderType][bind].buffer == NULL'
constantly and the shader says that UnityPerMaterial CBuffer inconsistent size inside a SubShader (ForwardLit)```. I'm really not sure how to proceed.

As far as I can tell the property is present in every variant of the shader

[regal stag]

I would avoid including LitInput.hlsl. Copy it and make your own include file if you need parts of it.

Also make sure anything added isn't inside an #if / #ifdef. The order & size needs to stay consistent for all passes.

[mental bone]

so the Problem is being cause but LitInput being include in the ShadowCaster pass that comes after the ForwardLit pass and when I add more properties to the buffer in forward lit then it gets to a different size than the one in the next pass. If I'm understanding you correctly

[regal stag]

That is likely the problem yes. You would need to add the same properties to the cbuffer in the ShadowCaster and any other passes too.
Likely easier to swap the include out for a custom one, so you can keep all properties in the same file and passes can all include it to keep consistent.

Or I sometimes prefer having the cbuffer in a HLSLINCLUDE block in the SubShader, which automatically gets included in all passes.

[mental bone]

So if I have the same cbuffer defined in two different hlsl files that are included in the same pass it still gets merged into one right?

[grand jolt]

hey guys, should i learn writing shaders or learn shader graph?

[regal stag]

Not really sure. I guess if the size isn't consistent anymore it's either merging or overriding it but I'm not sure on the exact behaviour.

[mental bone]

I did a test where I disabled the other passes. I still got the exact same error so it must be comming from having two different CBUFFER_START() CBUFFER_END() blocks. Now I'm going to try to copy the litinput to my own file, since it's needed for the build in litforward pass that the shader uses and try to place the props in one buffer definition.

[regal stag]

Shader Graph is usually easier to learn but it also requires switching to URP or HDRP atm.

[mint wave]

@grand jolt both captain
First take this course ... faaaar the best
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj3Wm1EclAw&list=PL-05SQhI5rIZszELEnlWowy0L0nskmcF0
after you can switch with
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfC_ye23MvY&t=94s
don't skip any step .. and don't forget desmos ..
i'm a learner too if you want some challenge feel free to mp

[grand jolt]

i see

thanks guys

[mint wave]

np good luck and have fun

[mental bone]

Also @regal stag I wanted to ask you what VS plugin or other editor do you use for writing shaders ?

[mint wave]

i've a question here i've made a simple sin pulse and a transparent but my shader don't animate

@grand jolt i've forget
https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/ShaderGraph-MasterStack-Samples
😉 enjoy

i've found my problem !! but that strange
when i use multiply that's work
but if i divise (like desmos sin wave ) animation not work

[grand jolt]

alright i'll check it out, thanks again 🙂

[regal stag]

I use VS Code, but not sure on the exact extension and not at PC atm. I think it's just a syntax highlighting one though, no autocomplete stuff

[mental bone]

yeah I'm looking for a good autocomplete one but none seem to work 😦

[mental bone]

best thing I've seen in the past 4 days

[mental bone]

hmm now it "batches" but I get srp : node use multi pass shader and in the end I get as many SRP batches as draw calls haha

so no multi pass shaders at all ?

that cant be right because the URP lit shader is multi pass too

[regal stag]

You can have multiple passes in a shader if they're for different render passes (ShadowCaster / DepthOnly etc), but can't have ForwardLit and a pass with no LightMode. That is usually what multipass refers to

[mental bone]

yeah I figured that out. Problem was that the first Outline Pass is using SRPDefaultUnlit as its light mode

[regal stag]

Yeah having no LightMode is the same as that default. If you're doing inverted hull outlines it's best to split it into a separate shader and use two Materials on the renderer, or use the RenderObjects feature (if in URP)

[meager pelican]

@rustic daggerI'm guessing but you might want to check if you're having depth buffer issues. It looks like it shows up when there's a depth buffer. Are you using a transparent queue? Zwrite or not?
SWAG

[quiet flume]

So I'm using sprite skin my character with the little camera icon on the top of it. It's using the same shader as the tree in the background. The tree gets properly dimmed/colored based on the overlaying plane that's semi-transparent.

is this some caveat with sprite skin? I cant find anything online about this.

but the character should be darkened just like the tree is

[mental bone]

Now this is really the best thing I've seen in the past 4 days

[echo solstice]

Can someone help Me?

Why I can't use normal shaders in hight render pipeline mode ( shader graph mode)?

[echo solstice]

Lie standard shader

[meager pelican]

@quiet flumeTry putting the overlaying plane in it's own (later) layer.

[quiet flume]

what do you mean by layer?

the plane is a mesh

[meager pelican]

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

[quiet flume]

ok i did that

it didnt work

do i need to change the rendering for the camera?

or show this on a different camera?

[thick fulcrum]

assuming the character is also transparent, it could be rendering order. Increase the queue position for the material on plane perhaps above 3000?

[meager pelican]

It was worth a shot.
A diff camera might work.

But it's about rendering transparents, depth, and order.

[quiet flume]

i tried some of the presets for the rendering queue

nothing seemed to work

[thick fulcrum]

manually adjust it 3001 or higher

but probably won't work, as it's affecting tree ok it's more as Carpe says to do with depth and order

[quiet flume]

hmmm

maybe it could also do with the rendering rules

like you can set some rules on the pipeline renderer asset

ie. Stencils

[rustic dagger]

Yep, transparent queue, but not writing to depth buffer, since you don’t usually wanna do that with transparents (back-to-front sorting is all you get).

Basically the same setup that would work for vertex/frag, except this is a surface shader.

[craggy ledge]

guys

in custom vertex streams for particle there is Rotation3D(TEXCOORD1.zw|x)

what does zw|x means

i understand shader swizzle, but do not understand how to convert this

[rustic dagger]

zw|x? like that?

is it doing a logical OR between 'x' and TEXCOORD1.zw?

[regal stag]

It means the data is being sent into TEXCOORD1's z and w componets, and the x component of TEXCOORD2

[silk sky]

Is it possible to create a 2D shader (for URP) that reads every frame the RGB colors of my animated sprite and replace them with custom colors?

[craggy ledge]

Thanks man. So insane to write a notation like that.

[rustic dagger]

i've never seen that notation before...

does it have a name i can look up docs on?

[regal stag]

Shader Graph has a Replace Color node that can do that. Though personally I try to use techniques which don't involve arbitrary colours and needing to do a distance function on them to compare. If you only want to replace a few colours, your sprite can have sections painted in pure red, green and blue. Each channel can be used to mask & swap the colours via Lerp or Blend(overwrite mode), with the mask in the T/Opacity port that is)

[silk sky]

Yes, I intentionally marked the sprite parts with pure R,G or B. Now the only thing I need is to know how I can pass the current sprite to the node

Since my player is animated I cannot pass a single sprite

Is there a way to let the shader get the current sprite?

Wait, my player sprites are actually in one single altas, I guess I can pass it

[craggy ledge]

@regal stag float3 fullRotation3D = float3(v.texcoord1.z, v.texcoord1.w, v.texcoord2.x);

[rustic dagger]

compression can get in the way of specific color choices, though

[craggy ledge]

so i have this now

from custom vertex stream

[rustic dagger]

so i recommend making sure your image isn't getting any compression

[craggy ledge]

how can i use it to rotate a mesh

from the Rotation3D(TEXCOORD1.zw|x)

[rustic dagger]

in a vertex shader?

[regal stag]

Shaders for SpriteRenderers can obtain the sprite texture using the _MainTex input. (That's reference, not just property name)

[craggy ledge]

yes in vertex shader

[rustic dagger]

you'd need to construct a rotation matrix, and multiply that in before you do the view projection step.

[silk sky]

Why I cant modify properties anymore form the graph?

[regal stag]

v10 moved the settings for each property to the Node Settings tab of the Graph Inspector window

[rustic dagger]

i'm not familiar with Rotation3D(), so i can't help you with that one specifically; sorry :\

[silk sky]

Oh I see, thanks

[regal stag]

Shouldn't the particle system already rotate the mesh for you?

[craggy ledge]

I use some animation texture in vertex shader to animate the mesh. So i need rotation in shader as well or the mesh will not face the direction i want since the animation data takes control of the mesh orientation

hope it makes sense

i bake the animation into a texture and read this texture in vertex shader to animate a mesh (because particle doesnt allow skinned mesh)

it works but now i need to use vertex shader to rotate the mesh

and the rotation data is passed from particle through custom vertex stream

[regal stag]

You might be able to apply the rotation from the unity_ObjectToWorld matrix instead of requiring the rotation values.

[craggy ledge]

i want my particle (mesh) to rotate over life time and face that direction so that is why i thought i need to read the rotation values

not sure if that is the right way

[full salmon]

I'm having a really weird issue with the Gradient Sample node. Easiest to show with an image:

I would expect the preview in the GS node to look the same as the gradient (here I've photoshopped it next to it to compare), but it's much harsher in how it goes from dark to light. Have I missed something?

[regal stag]

Does the gradient have alpha values?

[silk sky]

What am I doing wrong with lerp filter?

[regal stag]

Put the R port into the T input on the Lerp node instead. That way, when R=0 it will use the colour in A, and when R=1, it uses B.

If you don't care about the other/background colour, then you can multiply R by the custom colour instead. Do the same for each channel for other custom colours, then add them together.

[silk sky]

the problem is it keeps the black background

when in the actual texture its alpha

[full salmon]

Just checking. Man I am gonna kick myself if it's that.

Nope - 255 all the way across.

[silk sky]

mb I didnt added the texture alpha

[full salmon]

I really feel like my issue must be something so simple even an idiot gets it right. Otherwise I'd be able to find the answer somewhere online

[regal stag]

Then it's probably something to do with linear vs gamma colour space. If you want it to look like the one in the gradient preview it might need to go through a Colorspace Conversion node.

[worldly drift]

Anybody knows why the stats windows displays 16 batches but the frame debugger only says 3? Seems like the stats window does not correctly display SRP batching?

[regal stag]

Yeah, stats window doesn't account for SRP batching

[full salmon]

Cool, thank you! I'll try that.

[worldly drift]

Weird because in the tutorial it seems to do

[mental bone]

The stats window does indeed not display batches from the SRP batcher correctly. You should trust the frame debugger

at least on 2019 lts for me. Havent tested on newer versions

[full salmon]

Wow, this was it! All matching, now I can actually use a gradient to control opacity!

Thanks!

[worldly drift]

Well seems like during the making of the tutorial in Unity 2019.2.9f1 it worked? So this seems to be a regression. But thx I will stop trusting the stats window

[mental bone]

there is this scrip that seems to deliver more relevant info https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/SRPBatcherBenchmark but I wouldn't trust it either

[worldly drift]

Interesting. Thx

[rustic dagger]

any chance you're still here and can maybe help with my problem?

https://pastebin.com/WHMN4XnP

this shader looks fine on camera, but when that camera renders to texture, everything that has alpha and doesn't have anything rendering behind it gets clipped out

so alpha is 0 or 1

i tried tracing the builtin shader code from where surf() gets called, but it gets messy

[mental quest]

How to use roughness in unity ?

[digital vector]

unity uses smoothness afaik, so you gotta invert the roughness texture

as smoothness is just inverted roughness and vice versa

[mental quest]

Hmm makes sense. Is negate inverse or do I have to look for another node?

[digital vector]

i think you gotta use one minus

[mental quest]

Oh right. Thank you so much

[digital vector]

Also, does anyone here know if URP allows to layer passes?
in built-in, i rendered my grass particles in its own pass, on top of my surface shader.
In URP that doesnt work, since i can only have one Univseralforward pass.

Any other way to accomplish this?

From my current understanding of SRPs, it should be possible to render passes seperately and layer those on top of the render or something alike, right?

or is there an easier way

Rn the only viable option i see are render objects, but they are marked experimental, so i wanna see if there is a more viable option before proceeding with that

[regal stag]

You can technically have other passes that aren't tagged with a lightmode (or using the SRPDefaultUnlit lightmode) alongside the UniversalForward to produce multi-pass shaders. However, that will break the SRP Batcher compatibility so shouldn't be used for rendering many objects.
Instead, you can have multiple materials assigned to the MeshRenderer, or use RenderObjects (which while it might be marked experimental, I've never had any problems with it).

[frosty loom]

how to compress an object texture to be pixelated?

in shader

I, of course, can use render textrure, which will compress the size, but this will not work in my situation

[digital vector]

Hm, yeah i wanna make it work with the SRP batcher, and the one material slot is already taken by the shader that draws the normal surface stuff

i assume i cant just add a second material and that would render as well? that'd be amazing

[regal stag]

Yes, you can assign multiple materials

[digital vector]

What about meshes with multiple material slots?

[regal stag]

It wraps around for meshes with multiple submeshes.
If you have a mesh with 2 submeshes for example, the first material, third, fifth, etc would all use the 1st submesh. Second, fourth etc materials uses 2nd submesh.

[digital vector]

Oh wow this sounds damn useful. Thanks for the info!

[regal stag]

You might get a warning/message shown about using shader passes instead but that applies more to built-in RP

[digital vector]

alright

As for render objects- can i somehow render them to render textures?

In built in i originally had another camera which used a replacement shader that has drawn to a render texture

which i then used in a custom post process effect

any way to do that properly in URP?

oh boy i just realized that im reading your blog on writing shader code for URP

-good stuff btw

[regal stag]

Might be able to use a second camera with a Render Texture target and have it use a different Forward Renderer asset (with the RenderObjects feature) than the one used by the main camera. (Can assign multiple Forward Renderers to the URP Asset which makes them available to cameras).

Alternatively, you could write a custom renderer feature similar to what the RenderObjects feature does, but with a ConfigureTarget (might need to setup the render texture too). If it helps, the code for the RenderObjects can be found here :
https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/Graphics/blob/v10.3.2/com.unity.render-pipelines.universal/Runtime/RendererFeatures/RenderObjects.cs
and the pass, https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/Graphics/blob/v10.3.2/com.unity.render-pipelines.universal/Runtime/Passes/RenderObjectsPass.cs
Might also be able to adapt this as it's a similar thing, https://gist.github.com/Cyanilux/be5a796cf6ddb20f20a586b94be93f2b

[silver moat]

Hello, is there anyone who can help me? I'm trying to write my own surface shader on HDRP and even if it doesn't display errors on the console, it shows pink

[digital vector]

Yo thanks for the material! A great help as usual! I really appreciate it man!

[regal stag]

HDRP does not support surface shaders. You can write vert/frag ones but it's recommended to use Shader Graph instead.

[silver moat]

That's a shame... I tried to use Shadergraph but I couldn't figure out some stuff

Thanks for the help

Will turn this into a fragment one then

Though I wonder how it will then support lighting

[meager pelican]

IDK.
Check render texture and that camera has depth texture. But otherwise that looks like a pretty stock shader.
You could experiment with changing the blend and see if that gives you any clues.

[rustic dagger]

nope; none of that worked. only thing that did was rewriting the shader as vertex/frag, rather than use the surface pipeline.

i only wrote it as a surface originally out of convenience, but it looks like it's run its course

[meager pelican]

IDK, new one on me. Surface shaders "just" generate vert/frags. As you know.

[rustic dagger]

oh yeah, i do. they use a stock vertex function you could override, and otherwise collate and organize data for you into a convenient surface shader that gets packaged into the appropriate buffers down the line.

it's great in general

but that one piece of it with the alpha as it gets saved in the framebuffer

i'm just baffled

as far as i can tell it's probably just some flag i'm missing

because the standard shader uses the surface pipeline, and it works when set to fade mode

so i tried going through its code, but got lost

it's a web of cgincs

[meager pelican]

You could try RenderDoc or PIX or even dedicated vendor debug tools.

[rustic dagger]

can those load a unity surface shader?

like, without a lot of hassle of manually adding all the stuff?

[meager pelican]

They're more about debugging the draw calls. YMMV.
But yeah, some will let you step through the shader line by line. There's unity docs on debugging shaders. Visual studio too.
I think IIRC that PIX requires DX12.

[rustic dagger]

oh so they can attach to live processes?

gotcha

[meager pelican]

The vendor tools specifically, sure. But the V.Studio and PIX too IIRC.

[rustic dagger]

oh well, i already wrote it as a vertex/frag shader

maybe when this problem comes up again in the future... lol

[meager pelican]

🙂

[rustic dagger]

future Permutator can worry about that 😛

[silver moat]

I have sadly found out about an issue regarding touching the UV while sampling a texture inside a fragment shader: it creates seams between the tilings...

And I've read that it's not just a Unity problem, but a general problem whose solution is "never map the UVs to the border"

Is there any quick cheap solution though? To enable me to keep using mipmaps so that the texture looks good from far away, while not getting seams?

I'm experimenting with the fragment shader and looking into the tex2DGrad function, but I still don't understand derivatives

[pallid belfry]

What shader system do I use with URP? Am I able to use VFX Graph or do I go with Shader Graph. I keep thinking Shader Graph

[tame topaz]

@pallid belfry Don't crosspost please.

Shadergraph and VFX are two different things, it's not one or the other.

[harsh ridge]

Bit of a basic shader graph question. I have a multiply that takes in position. I want to make it so that only the Y axis of the vertex is changed. What would I plug into it to do so?

[regal stag]

You can plug a Vector3 node with (1, some input/value, 1) into it. Combine node works too.

[harsh ridge]

Thanks! I've never dealt with node-based stuff before so it's taking a sec to wrap my head around it.

[regal stag]

Another way is to Split the Position node to obtain the float component of each, multiply the G/Y axis only and then recombine in Vector3/Combine node but that can get messy.

[harsh ridge]

I'm going to try this as practice

This is actually quite intuitive. Thanks a lot for the help.

[regal stag]

Happy to help, Also the (1) ports (light blue/cyan coloured connections) are already a single float value so the Float nodes there aren't really doing anything and could be removed to simplify the graph.

[harsh ridge]

Ah I see. Yeah the output is already a float

[regal stag]

If interested I also wrote an introduction post to SG which you might find useful, https://www.cyanilux.com/tutorials/intro-to-shader-graph/

[harsh ridge]

Awesome! It's nice to find a comprehensive guide.

Much appreciated

[digital vector]

It still gives me the multiple pass warning, but it works! This will make my foliage shader so much cleaner :')

[digital vector]

in my original shader i had this matrix multiplication
float3 camDir = mul((float3x3)unity_CameraToWorld, float3(0, 0, 1));
Any way to get the camera direction in URP?

nvm, i assumed that the unity_CameraToWorld matrix was only a built-in thing, but looks like its in URP too

[regal stag]

Might be basically the same thing, but SG seems to use float3 _Camera_Direction = -1 * mul(UNITY_MATRIX_M, transpose(mul(UNITY_MATRIX_I_M, UNITY_MATRIX_I_V)) [2].xyz);

[digital vector]

I'm trying to sample a texture using SAMPLE_TEXTURE2D_LOD in my geometry shader, but it doesnt recognize my sampler that i defined with SAMPLER. Do i need to use a specific sampler?

or do i have to add my TEXTURE2D + SAMPLER into my Cbuffer?

[regal stag]

Hmm no, I think it should work fine 🤔

The sampler is defined before the geom shader?

[digital vector]

hm, this is how i use it

...
_WindMap("Wind map", 2D) = "grey" {}
...
TEXTURE2D(_WindMap); SAMPLER(sampler_Windmap);
...
float2 windSample = (SAMPLE_TEXTURE2D_LOD(_WindMap, sampler_Windmap, uv, 0).xy * 2 - 1) * _WindStrength;

[regal stag]

The issue might be the capitalisation in the name. WindMap vs Windmap

[digital vector]

... ohhh im stupid

thanks!

[regal stag]

No worries

[digital vector]

still gotta get used to not having Sampler2D

https://i.gyazo.com/e53860d21f8f113626ef6e5e5ed0372b.mp4 geometry shader working like a charm again!

now time to put keywords in

[toxic flume]

The best efficient way to have intersection lines (objects) is to use depth map?
I want it for the whole scene
android devices

[molten violet]

How can I get a fade out to the corners of this shape?

[molten violet]

Edges of the shape would be a better way of saying it

Like this thing from polar, but with that shape

Ok thanks anyways, I'll wait for someone else but will take a look at that

[simple violet]

has anyone made a new cginc file that works in urp?

[mental bone]

You make it a hlsl file not a cginc

[simple violet]

i mean so i just add .hlsl to the end of cginc?

[mental bone]

You make a myAwsomeInclude.hlsl

And you write the file using hlsl syntax not cg

[simple violet]

the thing im having trouble with is the line #include "UnityCG.cginc"

always breaks shaders in urp

when they worked fine in earlier versions

[mental bone]

Im not sure but I think they deprecated UnityCG.cginc. none of the urp shaders use it

Macros now come from the hlsl file in the srp

[simple violet]

would it be possible to upgrade unityCG.cginc to be compatible?

[silk sky]

Is it possible to convert a bool property to a 0/1?

(I need my boolean to arbitrate a lerp node)

[meager pelican]

False = 0, True = 1

[silk sky]

I cannot put a bool into lerp T

[meager pelican]

You could use a conditional node and set it.
the basic idea is:
float val = (conditional-bool) ? 1 : 0;

[silk sky]

how do I set a "conditional node"?

[meager pelican]

You might just be able to:
float val = (float) boolvar;

cast it.

But if you're using nodes it's more awkward.

[silk sky]

Im using notes

[meager pelican]

Let me find the conditional

[silk sky]

I found something called "Branch"

Ok it is

[meager pelican]

https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.shadergraph@11.0/manual/Branch-Node.html

[silk sky]

Giving an input Bool I can select true and false floats outputs

[meager pelican]

Yes, which is more logically correct and clear.

But

In HLSL, a bool has false = 0, true = 1 already. So you MAY just be able to cast it. IDK if SG will let you do that through, never tried it.

The question I have is why are you lerping with a bool T value?

You know it's either 0 or 1, there's no middle ground.

So since you have a branch already, just select the 0 value or the 1 value.

[silk sky]

cause I need to set my sprite to fully white when he takes damage

so I just have color lerp node which switch between current color and full white based on 0/1

[meager pelican]

Just put the colors into the conditional in the first place.

output the result you want, either current color or the white.

So you don't need the lerp because you already have the branch.

[silk sky]

oh thats right

I didnt knew Branch could took V4 inputs

thanks for the tip

[meager pelican]

🙂

[indigo frost]

Hey buddy, i want to thank you again for the help the other day

I did some minor tweaks in almost everything and made a second mesh with it's alpha down and it looks pretty sick, now i just need some post processing and it's going to look extremely dope.

However I come in a time of great need again. I kind of need to make a circle in shader graph using uv's, any help?

[full salmon]

what are my options for generating a texture in code that I can then use in a shader graph? It's just some lines, but the maths to generate it is dead simple. I'm fine with just generating it once, since it's not dynamic in any way

[mental bone]

you have a custom function node in shader graph than can execute arbitrary hlsl code

[indigo frost]

What is a better alternative to this

[mental bone]

Fresnel ?

[indigo frost]

Not like fresnel

i need hard edges like the image i'm showing

but i'm simply wondering if there is a 'better' way to do it

[full salmon]

heh, I just smashed it together in photoshop and it loooks fine 😄

[full salmon]

Can anyone tell me what UV I could use as an input to Gradient Noise to get an equal spread of noise all over a sphere?

[amber saffron]

Depend on what you need to do, but right now it's not so bad.
You could also use this chain of nodes :
.... => Length => subtract (diameter value) => absolute => step (thickness)

[indigo frost]

Do you think this is more permanent ?

[amber saffron]

What do you mean for "permanent" ? 🤔

[indigo frost]

Run faster on the gpu

[amber saffron]

The one you posted before is probably a bit faster than this one.

But unless you're already strugling with performance, I would not bother looking in optimizing such simple graphs, that are probably not the bottleneck anyway

[indigo frost]

Well i'm trying to build some effects for mobile

And i'm not an expert, but a friend of mine told me that there is a fine gap between playable and enjoyable performance.

And this is why i'm trying to build up knowledge of how to do these things to run as fast as possible

[amber saffron]

In all the different solutions so far, including the one I proposed, the most costly operation is the length node, that requires a square root operation

But if you want to draw a circle, there is not really a way to avoid it 🙂

[indigo frost]

Is that what basically the ellipse node is doing ?

[amber saffron]

Yes (look at the generated code here : https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.shadergraph@11.0/manual/Ellipse-Node.html)

[indigo frost]

the fwidth

i see.

[amber saffron]

Ellipse is using the fwidth operation for an anti aliasing look, that might add some cost

[indigo frost]

Mhm

Thanks

[amber saffron]

The method I mentioned earlier is the signed distance function way of drawing a circle. But your one with the two steps node is as much valid.

[indigo frost]

I believe yours will run faster

I don't need the anti alising stuff from fwidth

[amber saffron]

Perhaps. You'll know if you do profiling, but I seriously think that unless you draw a gazillion of things with this shader the difference will not matter.

[indigo frost]

Perhaps i'm being picky, but i'm just that type of person /shrug/

[amber saffron]

Probably none. Your best choice would be to use a 3D noise and use the pixel position value.

[full salmon]

what's 3d noise?

[amber saffron]

Well, an noise that uses a 3D coordinate as input. But there is no node like this built in shadergraph

You can not lay out a sphere into UV coordinates without stretching or tearing, so the only other way is to use the 3D coordinates

Or multiple 2D noises projected from planes and blended together, in a triplanar mapping fashion

[full salmon]

Ah ok, thanks!

Yeah it's the stretching that looks a bit rubbish

[tawny shoal]

Anyone have a script for doubles sided glass

[polar creek]

radial blur effect with unity urp?

[rustic dagger]

I have a shader for circles too, and I cannot recommend using step() for it. It has pretty horrible aliasing. I suggest using inverse lerps (remap) to more smoothly transition from 0% to 100% alpha and then back.

[meager pelican]

@indigo frost Think of it as a distance from (.5, .5). If we assume a unit radius, you can compute the distance from any point on your texture to the center. Since uv's go from 0 to 1, that's great. Further, we can scale that min/max within uv space.

So if the distance is > 1, it's "blank"/outside.
if it is >= 1 - thickness, it's your line color.
if it is < 1-thickness it is blank/inside.
so

float cmax = 1.0;  // or whatever, could be .75 to leave a border
float cmin = cmax - _thickness; // pass this in for no-calc needed.
float d = distance (float2(.5, .5), uv);
float3 color = (d <= cmax && d >= cmin) ? lineColor : noLinecolor;```

Haven't tried that. It might have to be adjusted for aspect ratio.

[indigo frost]

I got it to work a while back

but thanks for the response anyway

Btw, do you know what the empty node that serves as a bridge / noodle organising is called?

this one

[regal stag]

Shader Graph calls it a Redirect (or Elbow on the roadmap)

[indigo frost]

I don't have such a node in my shader graph

is it something custom?

[regal stag]

It's not a node in the add node menu, but you can add it by double-clicking a connection/wire, or right-click a wire and select Redirect from the dropdown.

[indigo frost]

Thanks

[remote kayak]

How can i get intellisense working for shaders in visual studio

[misty yew]

I have a mesh consisting of 4 submeshes and 2 UVs. It currently has 4 materials on it mapping to different parts of the mesh. I want to reduce the complexity of the mesh by combining the submeshes into one mesh and the 2 UV maps into one UV map and have the mesh only use one material instead of 4.

Is this hard to do in unity? The mesh is not mine and it cant be worked on in Maya or blender as it seems that it has been triangulated (or something my artist told me).

I've been able to combine the submeshes already but when trying to apply the material, it seems that it does not map correctly on some parts of the mesh.

I've made a shader graph shader to try and see if I can map the texture to the 2 UV maps but I cant get it to work

[digital vector]

https://i.gyazo.com/d58815501221d22eda41d930be78c635.gif

I'm doing something wrong with trying to use UniversalFragmentPBR, but i cant figure out what

void InitializeSurfaceData(Geom2Frag input, inout SurfaceData surfaceData)
{
    surfaceData = (SurfaceData)0;

    half4 albedo = SAMPLE_TEXTURE2D(_BaseMap, sampler_BaseMap, input.texcoord0);

    surfaceData.alpha = albedo.a;
    surfaceData.albedo =  float3(1,1,1);// albedo.rgb * input.color;
    surfaceData.normalTS = half3(0,0,1);
    surfaceData.occlusion = 1;
}

void InitializeInputData(Geom2Frag input, out InputData inputData)
{
    #if defined(REQUIRES_WORLD_SPACE_POS_INTERPOLATOR)
        inputData.positionWS = input.positionWS;
    #endif

    inputData.viewDirectionWS = input.viewDirWS;
    inputData.normalWS = NormalizeNormalPerPixel(input.normalWS);

    #if defined(REQUIRES_VERTEX_SHADOW_COORD_INTERPOLATOR)
        inputData.shadowCoord = input.shadowCoord;
    #elif defined(MAIN_LIGHT_CALCULATE_SHADOWS)
        inputData.shadowCoord = TransformWorldToShadowCoord(inputData.positionWS);
    #else
        inputData.shadowCoord = half4(0,0,0,0);
    #endif

    inputData.fogCoord = input.fogFactorAndVertexLight.x;
    inputData.vertexLighting = input.fogFactorAndVertexLight.yzw;
    inputData.bakedGI = SAMPLE_GI(input.lightmapUV, input.vertexSH, inputData.normalWS);
    inputData.normalizedScreenSpaceUV = GetNormalizedScreenSpaceUV(input.positionCS);
    inputData.shadowMask = SAMPLE_SHADOWMASK(input.lightmapUV);
}

Is something wrong with my initializer functions?

(the shader doesnt take in normal maps or detail maps, hence why normalWS is left at that)

[indigo frost]

any tips on how to do anti alising?

in shader graph

[digital vector]

don't urp and hdrp have them integrated into the graphics and camera options?

[indigo frost]

i want to do it just for 1 material/graph

[harsh ridge]

What would be the best way to reference a different object's position in shader graph? Should I make a Vector3 property and tie it to the object's position with a script?

[polar creek]

im trying to add radial blur to my camera, everything works fine, but my posteffects are missing whenever I activate radial blur

[ruby meadow]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg0L9aCRWPE i have completed this exactly, works fine, but i was wondering how would i convert this so that i can apply to a sphere?

[digital vector]

https://i.gyazo.com/839b334df1ab21cd2c7f3989e7c5b886.mp4 i tried everything, but i cant get the lighting to work...

the normals are calculated using the same rotational matrix as the world positions

the view direction is calculated based on the world position

i don't know what could be wrong anymore

[meager pelican]

@ruby meadowWell, spheres get problematic when using square textures. That's just the nature of it. There is no perfect mapping from a 2D rectangular surface to a 3D sphere. Think about it...how could you take a piece of paper and wrap it around an orange and not wrinkle it? You can't. So you have to have cutouts in the 2D or other means to, probably mathematically, generate spherical texturing for a 3D object.

As for the normals and resulting vertex displacement, that's somewhat easier....because the normal of any point on the sphere is "just" the vector from the center to the point, normalized if it isn't a unit-sphere. So you can easily offset verts based on that new-normal by offsetting it in the normal direction by some amount/scalar.

But as far as textures go, it's hard. Also, there's the type of sphere mesh that you're using. Some squish triangles at the poles, some don't. Find one that doesn't and make your life easier. But IDK what its UV mapping will be.

Google is your friend here.

[grand jolt]

I'm having some issues with shader's and lighting. As you can see, once the point light begins to affect the surface, a square forms that is visible even through walls and other materials. How would I go about fixing this? Is it a shader problem or have i not configured the light correctly (please @ me with any advice)

[digital vector]

ok, so i sort of got the lighting to work; And now i noticed what is going wrong as well

the ambient light dissappears

but i dont know how the viewing angle correlates to the ambient light not working...

and i tried quite literally everything already; I have no idea why it does that

-for some reason it works just fine when viewed from the distance

i have no idea anymore whats going on

[grand jolt]

https://answers.unity.com/questions/888819/errorincorrect-number-of-arguments-to-numeric-type.html @half remnant

Yup

Float3 would suggest 3 arguments I suppose

No 1 is opaque

It could be the .xyz bit

@half remnant from what I can tell as a result of a very quick google, the warnin is common and can be ignored

[pallid belfry]

@tame topaz I simply asked the correct question in both threads. Since I don't know which to use what would you have me do? Because regardless I was going to ask the question in both since you know idk if I can use vfx in URP.

[tame topaz]

Yes you can
https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.visualeffectgraph@8.2/manual/GettingStarted.html

[pallid belfry]

@tame topaz saying yes you can has no context. Yes I can what?

[tame topaz]

Sorry, is your question not "can I use VFX in URP"?

[muted onyx]

Why does this lead to a seam when tiled? And how can I fix it?

I'm assuming I need to sample the noise by world coords or something

[regal stag]

Shadergraph expects a function like

void Atmosphere_float(float3 camera_position, out float4 fragColor){
  ...
}

The parameter names don't have to match, but the type and order does.
See documentation here for more info : https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.shadergraph@11.0/manual/Custom-Function-Node.html

[regal stag]

If the planes will always be flat then yeah, you can use the Position node in World space, Split and use the R and B outputs into a Vector2 node, then into the UV input on the noise.

[muted onyx]

Awesome, thank you. Is the gradient noise infinite?

[regal stag]

Yeah, (though the quality may not be great at very large values due to floating point precision issues)

[muted onyx]

Thank you for your help 💙

[digital vector]

cyan you are back! thank the stars

[digital vector]

Mind if you look at my ambient light issue? I can't seem to figure out why it acts like that

https://i.gyazo.com/03585b008e75ab709f91854c48777d28.mp4

Any idea what could cause this?

[regal stag]

Hmm, could you share the shader code?

[digital vector]

it's quite large

hang on a sec

[regal stag]

It depends on the precision of the Custom Function node. Unless you're messing with the precision settings it'll probably default to float. Could also be "half", in which case you'd need a second version of the function using that instead.

[digital vector]

void InitializeSurfaceData(Geom2Frag input, out SurfaceData surfaceData)
{
    half4 albedo = SAMPLE_TEXTURE2D(_BaseMap, sampler_BaseMap, input.texcoord0);

    clip(albedo.a - _Cutoff);

    surfaceData.alpha = albedo.a;
    surfaceData.albedo = input.color;

    surfaceData.normalTS = half3(0.0h, 0.0h, 1.0h);
    surfaceData.metallic = 0;
    surfaceData.specular = half3(0.0h, 0.0h, 0.0h);
    surfaceData.smoothness = 0;
    surfaceData.emission = 0;
    surfaceData.occlusion = 1;

    surfaceData.clearCoatMask       = 0.0h;
    surfaceData.clearCoatSmoothness = 0.0h;
}

void InitializeInputData(Geom2Frag input, half facing, out InputData inputData)
{
    #if defined(REQUIRES_WORLD_SPACE_POS_INTERPOLATOR)
        inputData.positionWS = input.positionWS;
    #endif

    inputData.viewDirectionWS = SafeNormalize(input.viewDirWS);
    inputData.normalWS = NormalizeNormalPerPixel(input.normalWS);

    if(facing < 0)
        inputData.normalWS = -inputData.normalWS;

    #if defined(REQUIRES_VERTEX_SHADOW_COORD_INTERPOLATOR)
        inputData.shadowCoord = input.shadowCoord;
    #elif defined(MAIN_LIGHT_CALCULATE_SHADOWS)
        inputData.shadowCoord = TransformWorldToShadowCoord(inputData.positionWS);
    #else
        inputData.shadowCoord = half4(0,0,0,0);
    #endif

    inputData.fogCoord = input.fogFactorAndVertexLight.x;
    inputData.vertexLighting = input.fogFactorAndVertexLight.yzw;
    inputData.bakedGI = SAMPLE_GI(input.lightmapUV, input.vertexSH, inputData.normalWS);
    inputData.normalizedScreenSpaceUV = GetNormalizedScreenSpaceUV(input.positionCS);
    inputData.shadowMask = SAMPLE_SHADOWMASK(input.lightmapUV);
}

half4 frag(Geom2Frag i, half facing : VFACE) : SV_TARGET
{
    SurfaceData surfaceData;
    InitializeSurfaceData(i, surfaceData);

    InputData inputData;
    InitializeInputData(i, facing, inputData);

    half4 color = UniversalFragmentPBR(inputData, surfaceData);

    color.rgb = MixFog(color.rgb, inputData.fogCoord);

    return color;
}

Geom2Frag o;
float colorRand = rand(positionWS.zxy);
float uvFlipRand = rand(positionWS.xzy);

half3 origCol = Center(color);
half3 color = lerp(_ColorFrom.rgb, _ColorTo.rgb, colorRand) * origCol;
half3 fadeColor = _ColorFade.rgb * origCol;

half fogFactor = ComputeFogFactor(positionCS.z);

o.normalWS = normalize(mul(angleMtx, float3(0, 0, 1)));
float2 lightmapUV = Center(lightmapUV);
OUTPUT_LIGHTMAP_UV(lightmapUV, unity_LightmapST, o.lightmapUV);
OUTPUT_SH(o.normalWS.xyz, o.vertexSH);

float4 dims = _Dimensions * fullScale;

for(uint i = 0; i < 4; i++)
{
    uint im2 = i % 2;
    bool il2 = i < 2;

    float3 vPos = float3(
        im2 == 0 ? dims.x : dims.y,
        il2 ? dims.z : dims.w,
        0);

    float3 outPositionWS = mul(angleMtx, vPos) + positionWS;
    #if defined(REQUIRES_WORLD_SPACE_POS_INTERPOLATOR)
        o.positionWS = outPositionWS;
    #endif
    o.positionCS = TransformWorldToHClip(o.positionWS);

    o.viewDirWS = GetWorldSpaceViewDir(o.positionWS);
    half3 vertexLight = VertexLighting(o.positionWS, o.normalWS);
    o.fogFactorAndVertexLight = half4(fogFactor, vertexLight);

    #if defined(REQUIRES_VERTEX_SHADOW_COORD_INTERPOLATOR)
        VertexPositionInputs positionInputs = GetVertexPositionInputs(TransformWorldToObject(o.positionWS).xyz);
        o.shadowCoord = GetShadowCoord(positionInputs);
    #endif

    o.texcoord0 = float2(uvFlipRand > 0.5 ? im2 : 1 - im2, il2 ? 0 : 1);
    o.color = il2 ? fadeColor : color;

    triStream.Append(o);
}

the last snippet is the end of my geometry shader

[regal stag]

Probably not the problem, but I assume you have #define REQUIRES_WORLD_SPACE_POS_INTERPOLATOR somewhere right? I think your geom shader would even error without it, since you are using o.positionWS and without the define it wouldn't be initialised.

[digital vector]

i did forget to replace the one o.positionWS as the input parameter there, but that unfortunately wasnt the issue

i add in the definition check in an effort to replicate the URP Lit shader a bit further

as it did the same

... hang on a second

i think the baked lightmaps are the issue

i just tried baking the scene to test something, and while the editor was removing the existing baked lighting textures, the glitch dissappeared

[regal stag]

Ah I see, Shadows.hlsl is what defines it

[digital vector]

ok, so for some damn reason after setting the object the grass resides on to static and baking the light the glitch was gone

any idea how this happens?

[regal stag]

Well, the shader switches between calculating ambient lighting from baked lightmaps vs Spherical harmonics (SH)

I guess there's something wrong with the SH part if baked works but the other doesn't

[digital vector]

huh

nontheless, thanks for your help!
I am probably cursed or something, only finding the solution semi-on-my-own when finally receiving help :'D

https://i.gyazo.com/96798501e8d8ccd026014e7c54a91e62.mp4

works like a charm now!

[regal stag]

I'm thinking maybe something like OUTPUT_SH(float3(0,1,0), o.vertexSH);, and inputData.bakedGI = SAMPLE_GI(input.lightmapUV, input.vertexSH, float3(0,1,0)); might have also "fixed" it somewhat, instead of needing to switch to static lightmaps.

That would keep the shading consistent with the world-up so it doesn't change as the grass billboard rotates. But I'm still not entirely sure why it went so dark even with the normalWS being used, unless the ambient source in the Lighting tab is using something different from the skybox perhaps.

[digital vector]

I've now used the original worldspace normals of the mesh, instead of calculating them, to keep the shading more consistent

[regal stag]

Yeah that's probably better

[sinful veldt]

anyone knows of a good tutorial about shaders? kinda wanted to create mine, but i suck at maths and coding

[digital vector]

ok so, slight issue i just noticed: When entering playmode, the game removes the additional materials...

any way i can disable that?

[dreamy pewter]

is it possible to draw outline of a transparent texture used for masking ? is there anyway to draw lines or circles ? in HLSL

[quartz gulch]

This may be a simple question. But how what kind of shader would you need to make general objects look"good" and "plastic-like" ? Something Nintendo-esque

Something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-DsOVUYxXw

[small zenith]

Anyone knows how to fix this?

I'm quite rubbish withe the shaders

from what I understand Unity is no longer using Unity_InstanceID, but I still have no clue how I can fix this issue

#ifndef NEOFUR_VERTEX_SHADER_INCLUDED
#define NEOFUR_VERTEX_SHADER_INCLUDED

#include "NeoFurUtility.cginc"
sampler2D _NeoFur_PhysicsPositionTexture;
sampler2D _NeoFur_PhysicsVelocityTexture;
sampler2D _NeoFur_PhysicsGuideTexture;

void FurVS(inout InputVS v, out Input o)
{
    float4 vertexSampleUV = float4(v.texcoord1.xy, 0, 0);

    float4 positionSample = tex2Dlod(_NeoFur_PositionTexture, vertexSampleUV);
    float4 normalSample = tex2Dlod(_NeoFur_NormalTexture, vertexSampleUV);
    float4 tangentSample = tex2Dlod(_NeoFur_TangentTexture, vertexSampleUV);

    v.vertex.xyz = positionSample.xyz;
    v.normal = normalSample.xyz;
    v.tangent.xyz = tangentSample.xyz;

    v.vertex.xyz += v.normal*_NeoFur_ShellOffset;

    float3 localBinormal = cross(v.normal, v.tangent.xyz);
    float3 guideVector = FromTangentSpace(tex2Dlod(_NeoFur_PhysicsGuideTexture, vertexSampleUV).xyz, v.normal, localBinormal, v.tangent.xyz);

    float3 worldCPOffset = 0;
#ifdef SHADER_API_D3D9
    worldCPOffset = float3(positionSample.a, normalSample.a, tangentSample.a);
#else
    worldCPOffset = tex2Dlod(_NeoFur_PhysicsPositionTexture, vertexSampleUV).xyz;
#endif
    
    float3 localCPPosition = v.vertex.xyz+mul(unity_WorldToObject, float4(worldCPOffset, 0)).xyz;

#ifdef INSTANCING_ON
    DoFurMath(unity_InstanceID, localCPPosition, guideVector, v, o);
#else
    DoFurMath(_NeoFur_CurShell, localCPPosition, guideVector, v, o);
#endif
}
#endif

[atomic apex]

Does anyone know how to change #pragma target for ShaderGraph? For some reason all transparent ShaderGraphs generate shaders with #pragma target 2.0 and I need it to be 4.5. Weird thing is that happens only on windows. On MacOs it works fine for me

[ruby meadow]

thanks! ive found a tutorial for a sphere texture which hopefully i can adapt into water

[grand jolt]

still unsolved 😔 any help would be great

[grand jolt]

Its also become clear the the objects dont form shadows for any light source other than a directional light

https://forum.unity.com/threads/lighting-forming-squares-against-shader.1121068/ <-- more info here now

[thick fulcrum]

@grand jolt you may want to check out the #archived-lighting channel as there are many factors which can affect and setting up lighting in the scene is not always as simple as one might expect. I would suggest starting there, but also are you using opaque or transparent materials (a transparent material set to opacity 1 will not work the same as an opaque material and can cause problems). Also UV's on models correctly and lightmap size spring to mind, but I would read through the material on lighting channel and tutorials on various media sights can help steer you in right direction to help identify if it's a bug or just configuration / scene setup.

Assuming this is a custom shader I would compare to built in shaders just to rule out it being scene setup, if you are the author of the shader you can then start to narrow down the problem. If your not the author, then you need to consider options on how to resolve 😉

[meager pelican]

Why do you "need it to be 4.5"? That's just the minimum level. If Shader Graph generates code that's compatible with 2.0 or whatever, why does it matter? You can still run 2.0 shaders on 4.5 hardware.

@small zenith Are you converting some old shader? There's not enough info to tell from here. You could pastebin the whole shader. But first, see posts in this thread: https://forum.unity.com/threads/instance-id-in-shader.501821/

@quartz gulchStandard shaders can do that....depends on settings. Then you don't have to write them. Or you could generate a default surface/graph for (maybe) specular workflow.

[clever saddle]

https://youtu.be/NiOGWZXBg4Y

Hey,guys. I followed the videos on YouTube. But I didn't figure out why use screen depth subtract screen position here

[thick fulcrum]

@clever saddle if you don't use screen depth it won't show the edge effect where it intersects with other objects / geometry. Scene depth needs to be enabled in the URP asset to make use of this feature.

[regal stag]

To add more detail to what Draydak mentioned,

I refer to this technique as 'depth difference'. The fourth A component of the Screen Position node (in Raw mode) stores the (eye) depth to the fragment being rendered (on whatever mesh the shader/material is applied to, e.g. the sphere), while the Scene Depth samples the camera's Depth Texture, obtaining the depth of objects in the scene behind the sphere. (This method only works for perspective camera projections too)

If the two depth values are very similar, then subtracting them gives a value close to 0. With the One Minus, it results in values of 1 at intersections, fading to 0 at larger differences (and also going into negatives but that's clamped via Saturate, or Smoothstep in this case)

[regal stag]

Are you sure it generates only with 2.0? There may be multiple SubShaders in the generated shader code. I usually see one SubShader targeting 4.5 (but excluding gles core / gles2 and gles3), and another one targeting 2.0. Can't remember which order they are in though. (in v10 that is)

[small zenith]

Yes

I'm trying to revive a shader abandoned since Unity 5

[grand jolt]

I havent got a clue as to what would cause the square within the shader's script though.

[grand jolt]

hmm- adding the tags

"RenderPipeline" = "UniversalRenderPipeline" "IgnoreProjector" = "True"

cause the shader to break :/

but fix the square lighting

Tags{"LightMode" = "UniversalForward"} this also breaks it

[regal stag]

The correct tag for URP is actually "UniversalPipeline", not UniversalRenderPipeline.

[grand jolt]

hmm

still breaks it

[regal stag]

Are you using the Universal Render Pipeline?

[grand jolt]

Yes

So we're looking to keep the sketching shader but get rid of the red square caused by lighting

[regal stag]

You'll need to share more information about your shader. How are you handling the lighting?

[grand jolt]

@regal stag https://pastebin.com/t0hje831

There's the subshader

[regal stag]

This shader code suggests you are using the built-in RP not URP

[mental bone]

I have no idea how its not pink

If you are using urp

[grand jolt]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[regal stag]

Probably aren't using URP

[grand jolt]

The project is using URP

[mental bone]

Prove it

[grand jolt]

This genuinely isnt my area of expertise

[regal stag]

Just because URP might be installed as a package doesn't necessarily mean it's properly using that pipeline. Check what is assigned under Project Settings. If it says "none", that means it's built-in.

[mental bone]

Screenshot the graphics tab from player settings

[regal stag]

Using the built-in RP is fine, but I'm not familiar enough with it's vert/frag lighting functions to help here

[grand jolt]

no you lot are right, its not set to a scriptable render pipeline which is weird because I had set it to be URP when i made the project

@mental bone you were right mate sorry

should I try upgrading to URP?

[regal stag]

My assumption would be that you aren't using the light attenuation (atten) properly. It should be multiplied in with the fragColor *= _Color.rgb * _LightColor0.rgb; line.

[mental bone]

I was just reading what that macro does since its use here seems fishy

[grand jolt]

so

fragColor *= _Color.rgb * _LightColor0.rgb * atten;

This shader was devised by someone a lot better at this than I am and its possible i've bungled the implementation of it

[atomic apex]

I need it because Hybrid Renderer v2 requires it

[atomic apex]

Yep, quite sure. I am just importing project again on MacOS to confirm that this is happening only on Windows

[grand jolt]

No joy I'm afraid

whats odd is that its visible on the other side of the object

even though the rendering mode is set to opaque

gasp

@regal stag you sir are a scholar and a gent. You were right! I didnt know the calculation was being run twice but I had to throw in the atten value, just like you said

genuinely, thank you

bloody legend

[regal stag]

Ah yea, it's done for both passes (the first being for the main directional light, and the second for additional directional/point/spot lights).

[indigo frost]

Hey guys. I'm not really on the pc, but a shader has been on my consciousness all day long and i really wanted to ask how to make it when i get back... or maybe not entirely spoil it out for me but give me a few points that will help me understand and make it on my own.

[hallow shadow]

hey guys, I'm looking for a guide or an already made shader for drawing an inline border on a plane - basically I would like to have an outline which is drawn inside the bounds of a mesh, not outside of it

does anybody have any learning resources for such a thing?

[clever saddle]

Ohhh. Got it!One last question:Does the depth in screen depth and screen position mean the distance from camera to fragments of object rendered?

[sinful veldt]

my plane alpha is effecting my portal effect and cutting it, anyone knows how i can fix this?

[indigo frost]

I'm not sure i understand this, but you can probably do that with the UVs

[regal stag]

Kinda yeah. It's the distance from each fragment to a position on the camera plane, not the camera's origin though. Like this, https://www.cyanilux.com/tutorials/depth/EyeDepth.png

I have a full post about depth related stuff here if interested : https://www.cyanilux.com/tutorials/depth/

[indigo frost]

Again, i'm not sure i understand this correctly, is this maybe what you are looking for?

[hallow shadow]

yes, this is it

[regal stag]

Are you referring to the plane casting a shadow? You could change the Cast Shadows option on the MeshRenderer to remove them

[hallow shadow]

but how can I do it so that the part inside the border is transparent? @indigo frost

i'm sorry for insisting on this, I literally have no experience with shaders and I'd like to learn 😄

[sinful veldt]

no, i am using URP fog shader on the green plane, if i decrease it's alpha the portal is visible. idk why fog shader is affecting the portal shader

[ruby meadow]

i have done a lot of googling and research yet I cannot find any tutorials on a water shader for a sphere, can anyone point me in the right direction? i am a beginner to unity

[regal stag]

Oh okay, maybe it's rendering them in the wrong order? Try changing the Render Queue value on the material slightly

[grand jolt]

Hi!
Is there a simple way to add light/shadow support into a custom vert/frag shader?
I've seen some examples, but the one I'm using is missing ambient/sky and shadows support

More specifically, using Metallic/Gloss

The lightning.cginc seems to have helper methods to do that. Not sure if I can come up with the same structs with a vert/frag shader

https://github.com/TwoTailsGames/Unity-Built-in-Shaders/blob/master/CGIncludes/Lighting.cginc

[indigo frost]

Sorry it took me a long time to respond.

You want to make the white area of what i showed into a transparency?

You can shove the output of the last node into a 'One-Minus' and then into the alpha of a transparent shader.

Again... I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for. I can't really help much since I'm not on the pc. Maybe if you can showcase an example from somewhere I'd have a bit more knowledge as to what you are trying to do. Also side note : I'm also not a shader graph expert, but if It's within my knowledge, I'll help you out.

[pliant jasper]

how can i make a 3D scene look like 2D pixel art (WITHOUT just lowering the camera resolution since that looks like shiz)

example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSNdZ82I-eQ

[tame topaz]

With a lot of work? Just look through the persons channel (there's a workflow video too), just to get a sense of just how much custom work goes behind it.

You could try asking the author on some pointers for where to even start.

[pliant jasper]

there are a few problems bcs 1. i dont know jack shit about shaders
2. i suck at coding
3. i dont have much time in my hands to write something like that especially as a person who doesnt know anything about shaders
4. im willing to bet the author is too busy to ever respond since ive left a message to him about 2 months ago and he still hasnt responded

also i saw the workflow video i just dont get how that would help me make that shader if i even tried

[tame topaz]

Okay, so what kind of answer were you hoping for? That maybe Unity had something built in?

[pliant jasper]

obviously unity doesnt have that shit built in but i was wondering if theres anything similiar or something

like a shader i can download and use

or something

[tame topaz]

Maybe have a look on the Asset Store

[pliant jasper]

but i dont know what exactly to search for

also i cant really afford to pay for anything since im really low on money

the asset store doesnt seem to have anything that could help

[obsidian kindle]

Why my Skybox Graph Shader create this defect?

[tame topaz]

I'll be really surprised if a free solution existed online. I would just look up something like a "3D pixel shader". There's really no official term for this as far as I know.

[pliant jasper]

the only thing i find when searching that is bad tutorials on how to literally jsut lower the camera resolution which i DO know how to do

[tame topaz]

Right. Well, it might just be that there is nothing available.

[bitter forge]

I'm just getting into compute shaders, is there any major difference including a custom .cginc vs .hlsl?

[noble bobcat]

guys, so i was making this shader and i wanted a object to fade if it got closer to the camera but this doesn't seem to be working for some reason. Any clue why?

The problem isn't on the object fading the wrong way, the issue is that even if i get the camera closer or further away it simply wont change

i've tried using the position node too and it doesnt change a anything

[waxen wind]

@regal stag back in February you were talking about the custom Blit renderer feature .. I finally got around to trying it. I got a texture overlayed on the screen, but how do I get the existing camera image so I can apply effects? What you see here is just the texture, it's totally obfuscating the scene

[regal stag]

Make sure the Texture2D property Reference is "_MainTex" (field in Node Settings when property is selected. It's different from property name)

[shadow locust]

Dunno what video it's from but it's very common to have read only buffers

The buffer may be populated by the CPU for example and is readonly in the compute shader

Well you can clearly see that this shader is not writing to the vertices buffer, so there's no reason for it to be a read/write buffer

It's only not RW in this shader

I assume he wrote them

Guess he got that one from https://github.com/ashima/webgl-noise

[round patrol]

hi everyone. im starting a tutorial but there is an issue at step one that i have a question about. my graph is missing the properties for 2d texture. any ideas why?

[vocal narwhal]

properties are no longer underneath

they're in the graph inspector's panel

[round patrol]

oh i see it on the right, thanks

im getting an error from a URP sprite unlit shader graph and material. the solution i found online is below which is not an option for the tutorial.

the error:
Material 'Load Screen Fader Mat' with Shader 'Shader Graphs/Load Screen Fader Shader' doesn't have a texture property '_MainTex'

the shader works fine, but the error is annoying in the console constantly

[thick fulcrum]

You could try changing the "Referance" field in "Transition Texture" to "_MainTex"

or "Fade Texture" whatever you have named the texture equivalent in your graph

[round patrol]

thanks 🙂

[stiff remnant]

i coloured my model but its not right how can i make it norma

sgould look like this

[stiff remnant]

can anyone help

[thick fulcrum]

it's hard to tell from the pictures alone, are the surfaces not rendering properly? check for reversed normals in your 3D design program or maybe able to flip on import settings.
Secondly looking at your textures you will want to swap from metalic to specular in the material to use same setup as you have imported textures for

[stiff remnant]

i think its backwards i dont have much idea is there anything i can show u

its like the shaders is inside of it and not going round the model

[silk sky]

I'm trying to make a little 2d outline shader but I'm having issues with alpha

maybe its because the new shadergraph

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqpyXhBIRSw I'm following this brackeys tutorial

but at master he has a V4 Color instead of V3 Color + V1 Alpha like mine

(ok I fixed using a split note)

[thick fulcrum]

sounds like the faces need flipping, I know it's simple enough to do in Blender to check for and swap back to front faces. If your using other software I'm sure there is probably some methods but I'm no expert 🤷‍♂️
I think if it's all the faces might be an option on the import settings to do this, depending on model format etc.

[stiff remnant]

i found the model online

[thick fulcrum]

what is the format?

[stiff remnant]

how do i find it

thats the file

[thick fulcrum]

I'd probably be looking at downloading blender, import model and fix... however it depends on technical level and how keen you are to resolve this. Blender can handle most formats, not sure what else to suggest though 😉

[stiff remnant]

i thoght that i just didnt texture in properly

[thick fulcrum]

nah it's quite a common problem, some programs and importers yield different results depending on format. Many things which can affect, but as you say it looks inside out, probably almost hollow this says it's a model problem not textures.

[stiff remnant]

ahh ok

[fair sleet]

Can some URP wizard help me?
I'm using ConfigureInput(ScriptableRenderPassInput.Normal); to enable the generation of a normal buffer to use in a postprocessing shader.
I'm also including Packages/com.unity.render-pipelines.universal/ShaderLibrary/DeclareNormalsTexture.hlsl that declares the normal texture and provides some functions to sample&decode it.
If I sample the map using SampleSceneNormals(uv) I get this result:

Are these normals in view space? I don't know a lot about normals...
I need to convert them to world space but I don't know how.

Can I get some help?

[shadow locust]

what exactly is your end goal?

[fair sleet]

I want to use it for accurate edge detection for pixelart.
I can use the normal and depth buffers to calculate the position of the neighbouring pixels(assuming that they are part of the same face) and then check if it matches with their actual position. If not then it means that I found an edge

[meager pelican]

Those look like world-space normals to me. The green is the "up" vector... (0,1,0). Like you'd expect. The red is the vector pointing in the positive X-axis direction. The blacks you are seeing are from negativity.

[fair sleet]

but when I move the camera the normals change

if they were in world space each face would a constant colour

[meager pelican]

I couldn't tell if you were rotating the model or the camera.

[fair sleet]

oh sorry

I'm rotating the camera

also there is no blue

you can't map 2 colours to 3 axis

[meager pelican]

Hmmm. OK, no world-space normals then I guess. Like you say, must be viewspace.

I take it you're not using shader graph...

[fair sleet]

nope

[meager pelican]

What does your vert() look like?

[fair sleet]

this is a post processing effect

the UVs are mapped to the screen

[meager pelican]

But....you're writing a normals texture somehow, I thought you said. The PP is the one that READS that texture, yes?

[fair sleet]

here's the definition of some of the functions included in the pipeline

float3 SampleSceneNormals(float2 uv)
{
    return UnpackNormalOctRectEncode(SAMPLE_TEXTURE2D_X(_CameraNormalsTexture, sampler_CameraNormalsTexture, UnityStereoTransformScreenSpaceTex(uv)).xy) * float3(1.0, 1.0, -1.0);
}

float3 UnpackNormalOctQuadEncode(float2 f)
{
    float3 n = float3(f.x, f.y, 1.0 - abs(f.x) - abs(f.y));
    float t = max(-n.z, 0.0);
    n.xy += n.xy >= 0.0 ? -t.xx : t.xx;

    return normalize(n);
}

[meager pelican]

Last I knew, normals in URP were not supported.
So I thought you were writing them. But it's a moving target.
https://forum.unity.com/threads/urp-normal-texture.873226/

So I'm a bit behind, I guess. AFAIK it isn't supported unless YOU are writing them.

[fair sleet]

support has been added

here /\

[meager pelican]

OK, sorry. So your question is : "What format or space is URP's depth/normals texture in" and how to decode it?

[fair sleet]

yep

[meager pelican]

Fair enough. I need to find the docs on it if they exist. I'll try to help, but it's new to me too. I have time to learn though and now I"m curious. 1 Sec (or 500).

It's handy to have them and know this.

[fair sleet]

afaik no docs exist

Unity has good docs, until you are using something low level or recently added

[meager pelican]

This: https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/Graphics/blob/master/com.unity.render-pipelines.universal/Shaders/DepthNormalsPass.hlsl
Makes it look like they output worldspace normals.
I'm still confused if that isn't the case.

@fair sleet

IDK what "_GBUFFER_NORMALS_OCT" is or if it is defined. You could test to see if it is defined or not.

In which case it is a packed normal.

Then we "just" have to find the unpack function.

[fair sleet]

This should be the unpack function right?

It already get's called

[meager pelican]

Yeah, but you only want that if the define is active. Did you test for that?

And IDK if that is the right function or not, but you're saying it doesn't look like it is working. So...

[fair sleet]

It is the function used by the SSAO implementation

[meager pelican]

IDK. The default looks like world-space to me. What happens if you output just the float3 rgb values? No decode?

[fair sleet]

One sec I need to return to my PC

[meager pelican]

Did the SSAO wrap that in an #if? Like #if defined(_GBUFFER_NORMALS_OCT)

[fair sleet]

I don't think so

// Ref: http://www.vis.uni-stuttgart.de/~engelhts/paper/vmvOctaMaps.pdf "Octahedron Environment Maps"
// Encode with Oct, this function work with any size of output
// return real between [-1, 1]
real2 PackNormalOctRectEncode(real3 n)
{
    // Perform planar projection.
    real3 p = n * rcp(dot(abs(n), 1.0));
    real  x = p.x, y = p.y, z = p.z;

    // Unfold the octahedron.
    // Also correct the aspect ratio from 2:1 to 1:1.
    real r = saturate(0.5 - 0.5 * x + 0.5 * y);
    real g = x + y;

    // Negative hemisphere on the left, positive on the right.
    return real2(CopySign(r, z), g);
}

this is the packing function

as you can see it outputs 2d vector not 3d

the link in the comments is dead btw

[meager pelican]

The pack is in the source I gave you the link to though. But it is wrapped in an if. So like I keep saying, that has to be active.

In here: https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/Graphics/blob/master/com.unity.render-pipelines.universal/Shaders/DepthNormalsPass.hlsl

[fair sleet]

_GBUFFER_NORMALS_OCT is not defined

[meager pelican]

So you likely just have a WS normal and DO NOT want to run it through the unpack.

The trick is to find the wrapper function that decides that and either decodes it or doesn't....so the code is portable.

[fair sleet]

the plot thickens
the normal texture is generated by rendering the scene using the normal pass of every shader
this is the pass for the urp lit shader

float4 DepthNormalsFragment(Varyings input) : SV_TARGET
{
    UNITY_SETUP_STEREO_EYE_INDEX_POST_VERTEX(input);

    Alpha(SampleAlbedoAlpha(input.uv, TEXTURE2D_ARGS(_BaseMap, sampler_BaseMap)).a, _BaseColor, _Cutoff);
    return float4(PackNormalOctRectEncode(TransformWorldToViewDir(input.normalWS, true)), 0.0, 0.0);
}

as you can see it uses the packing function

[meager pelican]

The one I'm looking at says this:

{
    UNITY_SETUP_STEREO_EYE_INDEX_POST_VERTEX(input);

    Alpha(SampleAlbedoAlpha(input.uv, TEXTURE2D_ARGS(_BaseMap, sampler_BaseMap)).a, _BaseColor, _Cutoff);

    #if defined(_GBUFFER_NORMALS_OCT)
    float3 normalWS = normalize(input.normalWS);
    float2 octNormalWS = PackNormalOctQuadEncode(normalWS);           // values between [-1, +1], must use fp32 on some platforms.
    float2 remappedOctNormalWS = saturate(octNormalWS * 0.5 + 0.5);   // values between [ 0,  1]
    half3 packedNormalWS = PackFloat2To888(remappedOctNormalWS);      // values between [ 0,  1]
    return half4(packedNormalWS, 0.0);
    #else
    float3 normalWS = NormalizeNormalPerPixel(input.normalWS);
    return half4(normalWS, 0.0);
    #endif
}```

[fair sleet]

I mean.. this is the pass I've took from the package files

[meager pelican]

OK, but disregard that for 2 minutes. Just output the normal as a float3 without converting it.

See what you get.

[fair sleet]

Okay

as you can see the blue channel isn't used

bc the packing function only outputs a 2d vector

[meager pelican]

Yeah, I know.

But this test tells us if it is packed or not.
Because there's an "if", and also because you said that _GBUFFER_NORMALS_OCT is not defined.

[fair sleet]

I don't have that if in my version of urp

[thick fulcrum]

@fair sleet I'm leaning towards @meager pelican idea that the Normals_oct is not what your after especially as in the code you linked it states it is for "Octahedron Environment Maps". the SSAO implamantation I viewed does not reference them when unpacking, unless I've overlooked something https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/Graphics/blob/master/com.unity.render-pipelines.universal/ShaderLibrary/SSAO.hlsl

[fair sleet]

We aren't using the same build!

Mine does reference them!

[thick fulcrum]

it's also just unpacking within the file half3 GetPackedNormal(half4 p) { return p.gba * half(2.0) - half(1.0); }

[meager pelican]

If we can find the magic unpack function that's smart and knows how to unpack it regardless of defines we'd be gold.

[fair sleet]

where did you get this from?

[thick fulcrum]

the file I linked...

after it grabs the normals, it references it

[fair sleet]

okay
looks like my version has it too

[thick fulcrum]

line 380 - 396 shows them grabbing and using

although I will state this, I have used their SSAO and I had to set it to use reconstruct the normals from Depth due to it conflicting with some other shaders. Just a passing warning 😉

[meager pelican]

And apparently there's, SampleSceneNormals(uv), SampleNormal(uv), and GetPackedNormal(p0) functions.

[fair sleet]

This is madness
I'm so confused rn
What should I do

[meager pelican]

I can't find any docs on it yet, all you can do is try those functions or something. Maybe reverse the maths.
But those guys and gals are no slouches, I mean if they write a pack function they write an unpack one somewhere. Getting them to write documentation is probably a different kettle of fish.
You know, programmers. We're all the same. Hate writing docs.
lol.
So I'd try those functions I just listed and see if anything happens by magic.

[fair sleet]

okay
time to continue banging my head against the wall until the wall breaks ig

sooner or later it will work right?

[meager pelican]

Sorry man, I was curious too. I mean, it's good to learn the URP has a depth-normals texture.
Sure it will!

[fair sleet]

thanks

[mental bone]

So does anyone know any technique for outlines other than hull inversion or post-process based on depth and normals ?

[brittle owl]

sobel

[mental bone]

thats the second option I mentioned

[brittle owl]

oh whoops

don’t think there’s anything else

[brittle owl]

why not one of these, what are you tryna achieve?

[mental bone]

I'm trying to have outlines on objects in the scene that are pretty far away so depth based solutions dont work that well

[brittle owl]

i mean, in my experience the depth based outline looks like it doesn’t have a very far distance in the scene view but it’s fine in game view

[devout quarry]

@mental bone blurred buffer outlines or jump flood algo

[brittle owl]

oh man you summoned mr. outline

[devout quarry]

On a per-object basis you can draw objects with a ‘silhouette shader’ (just white for example) to a buffer, then you can blur that buffer using box/gaussian (make sure it’s a two-pass effect and you can also downscale the buffer before blurring for extra performance), then you can use that for your outline, the outline will be soft but you can also step() it for a hard outline. Alternatively, use a jump flood algorithm on the silhouette buffer.

But like @brittle owl said you can also just a sobel operator on other things than depth/normals, could be anything really

You can make objects output something to a buffer, then perform sobel on that buffer for outlines

Things like vertex color or albedo come to mind

This here is an URP version of Ben Golus article https://alexanderameye.github.io/jfaoutline.html

Original post here https://bgolus.medium.com/the-quest-for-very-wide-outlines-ba82ed442cd9

[mental bone]

ah I was reading that yesterday Thanks for the details 🙂

[ruby meadow]

if anyone could tell me the Lit shader Graph equivalent of PBR Shader Graph's Alpa and AlphaClipThreshold properties i would be very grateful

[devout quarry]

@ruby meadow you should be able to add them to the master node stack? I think you need to hit space

[ruby meadow]

yea but im using Lit Shader

as pbr doesnt exist anymore

theres only Fragment and Vertex nodes

as the master nodes

and they dont have Alpha or AlphaClipThreshold

[devout quarry]

Yeah but I think you can add the properties to the lit fragment master node stack, they are not there by default but click on the master stack and press spacebar, I think that does it

[ruby meadow]

oh

ok thanks

[mental bone]

you can add stuff to the stack like in vfx graph ?

[ruby meadow]

wait wdym

which master stack

fragment or vertex

[devout quarry]

Fragment one for alpha clip stuff

[thick fulcrum]

it's in the properties I believe when you click the master node

[mental bone]

I think you need to enable it from the node settings

[devout quarry]

Yeah you can pick from a list

[ruby meadow]

hm when i press space alpha or alphaclipthreshold dont come up

[thick fulcrum]

click the master node, see settings should be check boxs to enable them

[ruby meadow]

aha the Graph Settings node?

yeah

ok thanks

[mental bone]

I'm very confused. Sure you can add nodes with space but not the the master outputs right ?

[devout quarry]

Is it possible that this is different between HDRP/URP? The docs mention clicking spacebar on the master node to add to it

Yeah like 100% sure that I have done this before, add ‘output blocks’ to the master node stack by pressing spacebar, but this is in URP

[mental bone]

I dont have a URP project handy at home right now

why would they make it different between pipelines lol

[devout quarry]

I’m curious, gonna try it out right now haha

[mental bone]

I mean I wont be surprised but still

unity needs to get the team that did the vfx graph UX and have them do shadergraph

[devout quarry]

I tried it out and it's worse than I thought

If you click on the master node and press space, regular node creation menu pops up but there is a thin blue line below the last master stack output and if you click on that first, then press space, you can add output blocks

But in URP I believe that's the only way to add extra output blocks to the stack, I don't see anything related in node/graph settings

[brittle owl]

what?

[devout quarry]

PBR was just renamed to Lit

@mental bone btw just as an example, this was done using simple box blur, you can see that it's a softer outline.

[waxen wind]

I got it working @regal stag tysm

[digital vector]

Heyo, does anyone know why the shadowmask makes my shader go dark instead of "brightening" up, like the rest does?
https://i.gyazo.com/51e7f7e185cab2238dffd401ba15c1b2.gif

inputData.bakedGI = SAMPLE_GI(input.lightmapUV, input.vertexSH, inputData.normalWS);

do i need some additional pass for it to work properly?

[vast steppe]

Maybe I should just sleep on it, but I need some help with a shader.

• I have two points or planes.
• Each of them has a color.
• Based on each pixel's position I want to blend between the two points/colours.

How would someone experienced in shaders go about it?
Here is my (failed) attempt:
https://gyazo.com/9d009a9ad33d6d1e6d0301536a6299bc

The blending is just not correct.
It should based on the distance of the pixel from the lower plane, compared to the distance between the two planes.
Right now I'm just using a manual blending value.

If I do that the it's circular.
Maybe I did something wrong, I'll try again.

That would certainly work.
Let me try that first!

Thanks a lot.

[waxen wind]

Workin on this dirty water parallax effect, not done yet but cool to get my hands dirty in shader graph

[kindred imp]

hello im trying to find where to put my roughness map

im using hdrp

from what i found do i put my roughness in the alpha of the metalic map?

[white cypress]

invert it and put it in smoothness

[clever saddle]

I have a cude and 2 txture ground and grass.I want first-half be grass

and second half be ground

How to make it?

[lean shuttle]

My shader is behaving like a standard material for some reason, any ideas? (HDRP)

[clever saddle]

Or what's best way to make it?

[kindred imp]

in what part of smoothness like what part of rgb. Or are you talking about the shader graph

[white cypress]

yeah I was talking about shader graph. if you're not on shader graph you'll have to put it in the alpha of the metallic or albedo maps

[grand jolt]

I've posted an issue in #archived-lighting but i suspect its more of a shader thing

[meager pelican]

I'd generate or look at a vert/frag standard pipeline (I assume that was standard/built-in) shader that's lit, and compare it to yours. Look at the pragmas, spelling of options, and passes. See unity's standard shader sources too. With just a diff, like that how is anyone going to help you?

[grand jolt]

@meager pelican would it help if i posted the shader code?

atm i've hit a brick wall and the comparisons with other shaders are just making me more confused

I dont even know why thats happening 😆

that material is definitely opaque

[meager pelican]

OK, so you're in standard, yes?
And you've changed the pass? You should have BOTH a ForwardBase and a ForwardAdd pass.
But like I said, I haven't seen your whole code. And why that light passed through your material as if it wasn't there....is it set to cast shadows? You need a ShadowCaster pass for that.

Or a fallback to a default that has one.
https://catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/rendering/part-7/

[fringe sigil]

I'm trying to wrap my head around compute shaders. I'm just confused as to how many times the kernel function runs.cs [numthreads(8,8,1)] void CSMain (uint3 id : SV_DispatchThreadID) { Result[id.xy] = float4(1, 0, 0, 1); }In this function, with the dispatch computeShader.Dispatch(0, 256 / 8, 256 / 8, 1);, would this function run 256 * 256 times (so once per pixel)? Or does it run once each group? (256 / 8 + 256 / 8 = 64)

[sleek ice]

would like to understand numthreads better too

[fringe sigil]

I believe numthreads simply dictates how many threads run per group, so the "ideal" value for this depends on hardware.
However, the amount of times the kernel function runs shouldn't be too hard to understand, I just don't really know how shaders work :p I tried incrementing a value each time the kernel function runs to check, but it didn't even change, so I'm a bit confused

[meager pelican]

Yeah. OK, so the thread group is 8x8x1.
So that's 64 threads per group.

Yes ^^

So you need to dispatch enough groups in the right way to make them work.

And you do that with dispatch. So in your case

[fringe sigil]

Right, but do you know how many times the kernel function runs? Logically, I would assume 256 * 256, since I'm assuming it has to compute each pixel

[meager pelican]

You have preemptively a 256 x 256 texture you're running against.

So 256/8 = 32. So it's going to run 32 x 32 groups of 64.

[sleek ice]

makes sense

now

i think you made me smarter, thanks

[meager pelican]

So 1024 groups of 64 threads = 65536, and as a cross-check, you have a 256 x 256 texture so 256^2 = 65536. Check.

[sleek ice]

that would

bring up an error?

[meager pelican]

?

[sleek ice]

65536 runs

[fringe sigil]

So it would run the function 64 times?

[sleek ice]

nvm

still dumb

[meager pelican]

"the function" is run by 64 shader cores at once, and there's 1024 groups of them. So it would run 65536 times, once for each "pixel" in your 256 x 256 grid, if you allocate it that way. With maths and thread id's and group ids and stuch.

[sleek ice]

how the f

gpus are amazing

[meager pelican]

Yes! Massively parallel shader cores running the crap out of things.

Cool stuff.

You want to see them run? And how?

Go into a project and (hopefully standard pipeline) and make a compute shader.

[sleek ice]

okay

[meager pelican]

It will generate a text shader.

The default outputs a "red" pixel. and that's it. So you could pass it a render texture and color the pixels, then blit it to the screen.
But instead of red, color it with some math. Like GroupID and ThreadID as fractions of 64 or height and width. And watch it fill in the squares. I guess I could work on a demo if you want, but will take a bit.

[sleek ice]

lool

great idea

i will make that, no worry

i was thinking about training some shader writing

[meager pelican]

There's more info here on what gets passed to individual threads, several variable semantics:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/direct3dhlsl/sv-dispatchthreadid

[fringe sigil]

^ Yeah this is super useful, I read this and it answered my question

[lean shuttle]

My shaders preview is showing but it wont show in the scene view any fix?

[fringe sigil]

Is there a way to get the constant 4294967295 (uint's max number in HLSL and C#) as a constant in HLSL?

[digital vector]

Ok so this issue definitely has to do with mixed lighting

When i disable mixed lighting, the soft shadows that appear beyond the cascade get turned off, including the shadow that is applied to the grass

But i don't want to disable it, so i'm still looking for a solution

[meager pelican]

If it isn't already defined, try

uint myUInt = UINT_MAX;```

[fluid granite]

I'm trying to use this tune shader in VR via XR and only getting rendering in my left eye. Any ideas or fixes? https://github.com/IronWarrior/UnityToonShader

[fringe sigil]

What does this error mean?

I'm setting Result (which is a render texture) in two different kernel functions that are being dispatched right after one another. Could that be a problem?

[meager pelican]

It's complaining about the kernel at index 1, not 0. If that helps any.

[fringe sigil]

This is the kernel at index 1. The error seems to be complaining about the usage of Result, which is a render texture that gets set in kernel 0.

[meager pelican]

Oh. 😉 It's telling you you can't do that. Kernel 1 is thinking that Result[] is an OUTPUT texture, and it wants you to set it.

How is Result defined?

[fringe sigil]

RWTexture2D<float4> Result;

And this is kernel 0:

It basically just does a bunch of stuff and then sets the value of Result

[meager pelican]

0 is not the problem, though.

So that's good.

But for 1, you want the input texture to be what you had written in 0. And the output is to your new texture (ProcessedResult). Right?

So think of it this way:

Call them "InputTexture" and "OutputTexture"...for reference.

[fringe sigil]

Yep. I'm basically setting certain pixels on the screen to white in kernel 0, and then reducing their "intensity" in kernel 1.

[meager pelican]

So when you write the C#, you'd set inputTexture to whatever or null I suppose if you don't use it. Or a dummy texture, whatever works, and output texture as Result.

And then when you make the call to kernel 1, you set the Result from kernel 0's texture to be input, and the processedResult texture to be the output.

[fringe sigil]

Yeah but I still need to modify the input texture inside of the shader

[atomic stirrup]

So I'm trying to write a shader that I can use in a game called VRChat. It uses unity 2018. What I'm trying to do is write a shader that manipulates my view inside of an object that turns everything from full color vision to red-green colorblind. I'm having issues with knowing what a shader like such would be called so I can research it

[meager pelican]

Shaders have to be set up to do single-pass stereo rendering. Might work to disable that and use double-pass stereo, but ouch.

[fluid granite]

I thought that would be it. so it would tax the framerate a lot?

[fringe sigil]

I tried putting the contents of kernel 0 and 1 in the same function, and it's still giving me the error.

[meager pelican]

It's double the draw calls, yeah. But maybe not all that bad depending.

[fringe sigil]

I didn't really understand what you meant by it complaining that result isn't an output texture. I'm still setting it

Actually, this time, it's saying ProcessedResult isn't set

Which is what I'm doing at the last line

[meager pelican]

In kernel 1, you're setting processedResult[]. But reading Result[]

[fringe sigil]

Right, but I combined them and now both textures are being set, and it still seems to be complaining about processedResult

[meager pelican]

Well, we actually made progress. Now it's complaining about the right texture. lololol.

What do you mean you "combined them"?

[fringe sigil]

I took the code from kernel 1 and put it inside of kernel 0. So the first picture is the only function in the shader.

This time, maybe it's complaining because I'm setting 2 different textures in a single kernel?

Actually, I fixed it

Well I mean

It doesn't work, but at least the error is gone lol

[meager pelican]

Basically you can do it like you started to, or you can do whatever it is you're doing now.
Buuuuut....you have to make sure to set your inputs and outputs up and keep them straight.

And flip them around between kernels if necessary.

aka double-buffering.

[digital vector]

unity really doesnt like me

i wanted to see if adding a shadowcaster fixed the shadowmask problem, but to no luck... because the shadow.hlsl file doesnt work

[regal stag]

Might need #include "Packages/com.unity.render-pipelines.core/ShaderLibrary/CommonMaterial.hlsl" before the Shadows.hlsl include. That's where the LerpWhiteTo function is located.

[digital vector]

I did that

But that shouldn't matter, as the file gets included in shadows.hlsl too

[regal stag]

I don't think it does

[digital vector]

And when I paste the function in manually, it says redefinition

Plus the function not found error

I'll see if I missed something tomorrow, already shut down my computer

[digital vector]

Tho, while you are here, I wanted to ask if you know anything about my shadow mask issue

[regal stag]

It might be that when Shadows.hlsl is included, the function doesn't exist so errors. But later the CommonMaterial.hlsl is being included causing the redefinition. Instead of copying the function out, it would be better to use the include.

[digital vector]

Oh, maybe implemented the include after the shadows include...

Darn c Syntax and it's top to bottom compilation

[digital vector]

As for the shadow mask thing, I figured out it has to do with mixed lighting, but not much more

Still stuck there

[regal stag]

Not too sure, I don't have much experience with the Shadowmask but looking at the code you posted before, it had the SAMPLE_SHADOWMASK for the InputData and is using UniversalFragmentPBR function so I'd assume it would handle it automatically. Seems weird that it would darken at a distance.

I guess make sure you have the correct keywords too, like

#pragma multi_compile _ LIGHTMAP_ON
#pragma multi_compile _ LIGHTMAP_SHADOW_MIXING
#pragma multi_compile _ SHADOWS_SHADOWMASK

[wheat quail]

looking for some ideas on how to get rid of these strane diamond shapes when dithering. I cant see them in edit mode. only in play mode.

[digital vector]

Will do, thanks!

Oh, and one last thing

[digital vector]

The batching process doesn't allow for submeshes to have multiple materials

It removes them on build /play

[fringe sigil]

I'm trying to take a RWTexture2D variable in HLSL and "copy" it so that another RWTexture2D variable now has the exact same pixels, except they're not the same texture. How do I do this?

[regal stag]

Hmm that's kinda annoying. I guess a workaround is to just duplicate the GameObject itself. (Or use the RenderObjects feature)

[meager pelican]

@fringe sigilThat's generally referred to as a "blit".
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Graphics.Blit.html

[wary jackal]

So, I am learning basic vertex/fragment shaders in Unity after months of not doing anything, And I want to set up a simple lighting shader without using Unity's surface shader. I have set up a super simple shader using normal directions, but because the lighting is based on a direction, and not position, I get some unwanted lighting behavior.

Here is the shader

{
    Properties
    {
        _MainTex ("Texture", 2D) = "white" {}
    }
    SubShader
    {
        Tags { "RenderType"="Opaque" }
        LOD 100

        Pass
        {
            CGPROGRAM
            #pragma vertex vert
            #pragma fragment frag

            #include "UnityCG.cginc"

            struct appdata
            {
                float4 vertex : POSITION;
                float2 uv : TEXCOORD0;
                float3 normal : NORMAL;
            };

            struct v2f
            {
                float2 uv : TEXCOORD0;
                float4 vertex : SV_POSITION;
                float3 normal : NORMAL;
            };

            sampler2D _MainTex;
            float4 _MainTex_ST;

            v2f vert (appdata v)
            {
                v2f o;

            o.normal = mul(v.normal, (float3x3)unity_WorldToObject);
                o.vertex = UnityObjectToClipPos(v.vertex);
                o.uv = TRANSFORM_TEX(v.uv, _MainTex);
                return o;
            }

            fixed4 frag (v2f i) : SV_Target
            {
                return saturate(dot(i.normal, _WorldSpaceLightPos0));
            }
            ENDCG
        }
    }
}

Does anybody know how I could use the location of lighting to illuminate objects so I don't get unwanted behavior? (Or just any way to do this)

I had the idea of making a custom light position, but that seems difficult if I wanted to change the position while the game is running.

[meager pelican]

Firstly, you need to transform the normal direction similar to the way you transformed the vertex location. So it rotates and such.

There's a macro for that. Sec.

I guess it is a function:
inline float3 UnityObjectToWorldNormal( in float3 norm ) you can call that comes from UnityCG.inc.
You will also want to see here:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/SL-VertexFragmentShaderExamples.html

[wary jackal]

Thanks, let me try that out

What does the inline mean?

[regal stag]

Modifier that redefines a function declaration. inline is currently the only modifier value. The modifier value must be inline because it is also the default value. Therefore, a function is inline regardless of whether you specify inline, and all functions in HLSL are inline. An inline function generates a copy of the function body (when compiling) for each function call. This is done to decrease the overhead of calling the function.
From : https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/direct3dhlsl/dx-graphics-hlsl-function-syntax

[meager pelican]

Um, basically ignore it. It's telling the compiler to insert the code rather than doing a function call, but many compilers do that anyway. 😉 HLSL loves inlining code and it makes sense for a GPU. It will unroll loops too if it can determine the loop counts. So instead of doing a loop it will just duplicate the code 4 times or whatever the loop count is. It's compiler stuff.

Code generation.

[wary jackal]

thx

[meager pelican]

Cyan beat me to it. lol

[wary jackal]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_-NNKc4lrk

The video I got the code from is there, and doesn't the line o.normal = mul(v.normal, (float3x3)unity_WorldToObject); basically do the same thing as what you sent or no? I'm pretty new to all of this so it's a bit confusing

[meager pelican]

Yes

But use their routines to future-proof your code.

Doing "manually" is less portable.

[wary jackal]

Makes sense

[regal stag]

I'm also a little confused about the original question. What exactly is the unwanted lighting behaviour here? That it's using direction? It's a directional light so that's how it should look, no?

[wary jackal]

Yes, That is exactly what it is programmed to do. However, what if I wanted positional lighting instead, what would I do for that

[meager pelican]

It's more like "in addition to" rather than "instead". Here this will help:

[wary jackal]

Yes, that's what I mean, whoops

[meager pelican]

https://catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/rendering/part-5/

https://catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/rendering/part-4/

[regal stag]

Beat me to it 😄

[meager pelican]

😉

[wary jackal]

So, before I read that I had an idea and I have no idea if it would work. Basically, I would get the position of the light and subtract that from the position of the normal (it would probably be the vertex actually, idk) and if the value is greater than 0, it would be lit

[meager pelican]

IT's a dot product.
Often referred to as N dot L.

Where N is the normal vector, and L is the light direction (might be negated or not, I'd have to try it).

That's for simple lighting.

[wary jackal]

Yeah, and that's what I used for the directional lighting, but for positional I would need the position

[meager pelican]

There's more for other more complicated things, like specular (gloss) lighting. Blinn-Phong, or even PBR.

They include more sophisticated per-pixel calcs

Like energy conservation.

And/or view direction of the camera.

To calc highlights.

[wary jackal]

Yeah, right now I just want to make a custom toon shader using my own lighting and stuff

[meager pelican]

Yes, and there's attenuation macros for the fade off.

It's all in the reading.

[wary jackal]

I'll check that out, thanks for the recource

[meager pelican]

🙂

It's easiest to use a surface shader, but this is more educational.

So you know what it is doing.

[wary jackal]

Yeah, might be easier, but for my sake I want to learn how it works

[meager pelican]

Or if you're masochistic.

[wary jackal]

^ yep that's me

[meager pelican]

lol

[wary jackal]

Thx for the help, hopefully I can get somewhere. If not, I'll come back here 😛

[meager pelican]

P.S.
There's custom lighting in surface shaders too.
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/SL-SurfaceShaderLighting.html

So you don't have to do all those damn passes yourself manually. Just FYI.
@wary jackal

[light epoch]

cull off isnt working, i cant see the inside of my mesh

i didnt write this shader but i watched an explanation on it, it might be outdated by now idk

[wary jackal]

@meager pelican I haven't looked into it much, but I just don't get how surface shaders work with vertex/fragment shaders. It confuses me how two functions can be squished into one surf function

[light epoch]

nevermind it wasnt a shader issue, it was a problem with my scaling (setting a scale to -1 does some weird things)

[shadow locust]

Surface Shaders just generate code for vert/frag shaders

so the thing that ends up running in your game are normal vert/frag shaders. Unity just does some magic to generate those shaders from the surf shader

[wary jackal]

Is it worth it to learn about matrices in regards to shaders?

The tutorial you sent has a lot about matrices and I have no clue what it's talking about

[meager pelican]

Yeah, it can be confusing as to what goes into the generated vert() vs what goes into the generated frag(), but overall it figures it out based on what you're messing with. And it tries to do things that make sense to do in the vertex() per vertex. Such as that normals calc we were discussing. That's pure vert since you want to do that as few times as possible and the normals are stored with the verts, basically. Like same counts. Although you can have per-pixel normals with a normal map.

[meager pelican]

Something to read up on. But mostly you just use the functions that use them and don't worry too much about 4D math.

[wary jackal]

@meager pelican okay, I believe the first page of the tutorial you sent has some stuff about matrices

[meager pelican]

Matrices do translation, rotation, scale. in one multiply operation. Conversion between spaces. Like object space to world-space. Etc.

It's basically the transform component idea from a game object, but it's all vector mathed up.

[wary jackal]

Ah okay. So should I just ignore when it talks about matrices, seeing as Unity handles all of that

[meager pelican]

Kind of. You'll have to at least use them in the macros. For now, you can't learn everything at once, and matrices make your head hurt. 😉

I seldom have to construct a matrix manually, and if I do, I google my butt off.

Other times you have to use an inverse matrix for something. Because you're reversing a concept. But you'll get into all that later.