Making a logo dissolve

[jolly quail]

Hello everyone, I think I've not approached my task the right way. To start I created a 3d model of the logo, applied a texture for the required colors, tried to use the dissolve shader I found online (https://void1gaming.itch.io/free-dissolve-shader-for-unity-urp). Turns out it doesn't work with textures? So I decided to create a canvas and use a ui-image and use this 2d version they made (https://void1gaming.itch.io/free-2d-dissolve-shader-for-unity-urp) but I couldn't find out how to even attach the material to the image. Next I started looking for other shaders but the only ones I found were paid, which I'm willing to do, but none of them said if they work with textures (more likely I don't understand stuff properly). I then started exploring making my own dissolve shader and I doubtful that is the right use of my time right now. Can someone please lend me a guiding hand? What is the best way for me to proceed.

[desert ermine]

It can't "not work with textures"

Rarher than transparent, you will probably want to make the material opaque and tick "alpha clipping"

I'm not importing that shader and seeing how it works but I'm gonna assume it uses alpha clipping

Let's start from there. Dissolve shaders are really easy to make.

[jolly quail]

That was the explination I was provided early this morning when I asked about my problems here.

I'm not seeing that setting. Are you saying it should be on the material?

I have alpha turn to zero on the base color but it seems to apply something no matter what

Sorry...not sure protocol at this place. Just gonna tag you back...if you are busy please ignore @desert ermine

Not sure if this matters but here is the second of the shader graph where base color is being brought in and assigned. If I delete it, it seems to force one with color selector.

[desert ermine]

It should be under "surface options"

[jolly quail]

Its empty in that section "Suface Options" clicking the arrow rotates but shows nothing

[desert ermine]

Your screenshots are way too low res, I can't see shit

But from this img, seems like the shader does in fact use alpha clipping

[jolly quail]

When I click on them they look perfect

have to click twice

[desert ermine]

Can you click on graph settings in shader graph

Actually no need to confirm, I can see the alpha clip on the master stack

go into the hierarchy in unity and click on the logo game object

[jolly quail]

I found the setting "Alpha is Transpareny" on my material unclicked...that doesn't seem to have an impact. I'm wondering if this has something to do with being lit/unlit? I don't know unfortunately.

[desert ermine]

don't get distracted, man

[desert ermine]

try clicking on surface options on that object now

[jolly quail]

same...nothing appears

here it is with the arrow in the other direction

[desert ermine]

hmm. Can you change to any random shader and see if surface options appear

[jolly quail]

I tried about 10...8 had no option at all, 2 had the same issue that we are discussing

[desert ermine]

that's strange

can you make a new material?

[jolly quail]

Ok...when I create a new material, the options are there under "Universal Render Pipline/Lit". If I change to the dissolve they disappear.

They come back when I switch back

[desert ermine]

That's strange

is there a "allow material override" setting in graph settings within shader graph?

[jolly quail]

I do not see an option

Sorry...I was in the wrong shader graph

There is that setting

I just clicked it

saved, now it shows up properly

alpha clipping is now checked (it wasn't)

It is still over writing my texture

[desert ermine]

what do you mean overwriting

[jolly quail]

In the screenshot, you will see my texture is not visible

Here is my texture

[desert ermine]

How is it not visible?

I don't get it

[jolly quail]

The image two above is how it is now. It is black. It is suppose to be the bottom one.

LogoTexture, which is currently assigned to it has color of the most recent picture

[desert ermine]

So I'm guessing you have two meshes one over another, one is supposed to fade out to reveal the other?

It might be cause you have to actually change the alpha clipping value

go ahead into the shader and change the alpha clip number

see if it works

if so, you need to animate it via code when you want

[jolly quail]

I'm not aware of multiple meshes.

I'm not clear what you mean by alpha clipping value. When I adjust the cutoff height variable it works as I want it to...disappearing. But the starting state (10) does not show my logo texture

Perhaps you mean the alpha clipping checkbox in graph settings...I enabled that prior. No change was noticed.

[desert ermine]

No, go into the shader graph and find the alpha clip threshold on the block toward the bottom

[jolly quail]

I'm there

0.5

[desert ermine]

Change the value 0, save and look, then change to 1 and have a look. See if you see the change

[jolly quail]

no noticable change between 0 and 1, 10 made everything disappear

[desert ermine]

then the shader is made in a strange way

I can't tell what's going on because I can't see the shader

in a normal dissolve shader, you just animate the alpha clip threshold value from 0 to 1 and that's all

[jolly quail]

setting it to 0 makes it not disappear.

[desert ermine]

yes and that's correct

[jolly quail]

Its got an animation to it...not just a fade out

[desert ermine]

1 should make it disappear fully

[jolly quail]

1 makes the fade out work properly

but the cut off height of 10 still shows a black logo

[desert ermine]

possibly it's the other material showing

you currently have 2 materials on the object

delete the one using lit

[jolly quail]

that image I provided before was from 8 hours ago...I spent a few hours trying to get this working with two textures. All of our discussion, this has only had one texture

[desert ermine]

But how can it show another logo when you clip it fully? That doesn't even make sense?

do you have another mesh on the parent object?

[jolly quail]

I don't think so

[desert ermine]

is it the background?

[jolly quail]

Here is the backgroundQuad...I'm not sure whats going on though

I'm sorry if I'm being unclear but I don't have reference to shape my thoughts. What I want is for my logo to disappear. What I thought was the correct approach was to make a 3d model of the logo, apply the texture to it, then have a shader make it disappear. Perhaps this wasn't correct.

[desert ermine]

Is that logo texture on the background? Do you not want the grey letter but want the colored letters to disappear?

[desert ermine]

That's one of the ways to do it, and it should be easy

[jolly quail]

Its been about 16 hours

[desert ermine]

but you haven't been clear

[jolly quail]

I'll try my best to be clear.

That logo texture is on the 3d model of the logo I created

[desert ermine]

which one? The grey letter one or the one with colors?

ok good

[jolly quail]

I don't know where the gray is coming from

[desert ermine]

so you want the one with colors

[jolly quail]

Yes

[desert ermine]

that's what I'm saying

you put it into the scene and you don't know where it is

it's either in the background texture or something else

[jolly quail]

I didn't put the gray into the scene

[desert ermine]

you need to remove it

[jolly quail]

It appeared when I added the shader

to the 3d model

[desert ermine]

what happens when you disable the object?

[jolly quail]

sorry...I don't know what that means

[desert ermine]

The 3d object where the logo is

click on it, and on the top right there is a ticked box

untick it

[jolly quail]

it disappears...no logo to be seen

just black background quad

[desert ermine]

and when you change the shader to lit or unlit, does it change to the colored one?

[jolly quail]

If I go into the shader graph and edit the graph settings between lit and unlit, the grey color on the logo changes slightly but it is still gray

[desert ermine]

no, switch the shader

to the default urp lit or unlit

or one of those

[jolly quail]

unlit shows the logo how I want

[desert ermine]

ok

so we have narrowed it down

[jolly quail]

lit looks good too

[desert ermine]

that means the shader is changing the color of your logo

[jolly quail]

I believe it is applying the color yes

[desert ermine]

there may be a setting you got there that you can change to eliminate that option

you could have made a dissolve shader in minutes by following a yt tut btw

can you show the shader graph? Or try to find if there are options for the color

we can either do that or make your own shader

[jolly quail]

I'll do whatever I have to do. Is there a way to export the shader graph easily? I have a big monitor and it still won't fit easily (screenshot won't work easly)

I don't know much about shaders. I did try deleting the base base color but it brought up a color picker automatically

I couldn't get rid of it

It doesn't seem that complicated...but I don't see anything

[desert ermine]

what happens if you change both the colors of the shader to pure white?

I'm just guessing cause I don't know how it's set up

[jolly quail]

Only the base color has an impact and it becomes a light gray

here is most of it

better version

[desert ermine]

ok so only the edge effect is affecting the color

if you keep the base color at white, it should give you your natural mesh color

but since idk what you're doing, click on the link to base color and the link to emission and just delete them

Or maybe just keep the emission one if you want an outline effect

[jolly quail]

I deleted them

the default picker was assigned and the logo is now red

[desert ermine]

Cause you selected red in the shader graph

select white

[jolly quail]

I didn't select anything, the default is red. I changed it to white.

No change

[desert ermine]

ok

so the logo is still red?

[jolly quail]

Light gray

base color is white

but that was disabled so it doesn't matter

[desert ermine]

ah wait

I see there's a specular color field on the bottom

I missed that one

[jolly quail]

I see it. White?

No change

Black no change either

[desert ermine]

that should be impossible

there must be something I'm missing

I think it would be most logical at this point for you to create a simple dissolve shader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taMp1g1pBeE&t=409s

like this

this looks like what you want

just copy it

[jolly quail]

ok

thats fine.

[desert ermine]

you would have saved yourself the trouble

[jolly quail]

Well...I like to hope I learn stuff along the way...haha.

Would you mind if I ping you here if I run into troubles tomorrow? Obviously feel free to ignore if you are busy.

[desert ermine]

yeah I'm actually curious if you are able to make it

thing is, there shouldn't be any troubles, I made these sort of shaders multiple times before, it shouldn't get to this point

you can make this in minutes tho

[jolly quail]

Haha...maybe you could do it in minutes.

I feel like everything I've tried to do so far has been an hour or two...haha

[desert ermine]

I feel you...gamedev is incredibly complicated, especially if you work solo

you're overwhelmed cause you understand precisely nothing

I remember that feeling of doom

[jolly quail]

Yeah...I've been doing web development for 15 years...so I'm kinda used to the feeling/it does't stress me much. I can't imagine doing this with no experience to draw from.

I really appreciate the help man.

I'll ping you an update no matter what so you know how it turns out

[desert ermine]

oh I'm a dumbass

I forgot you want to use an actual texture, not just the mesh

enter shader graph, click space (add node) and then add sample texture 2d. You add your logo texture to that slot and you plug that into base color

now it should work

I mean, to that dissolve shader

[jolly quail]

@desert ermine : That did indeed work. I have two questions though.

1. First I'm trying to do the tutorial you provided. Literally right out the gate it doesn't work. In the video (2:55) he adjusts teh alpahclipthreshold and the preview dissolved. Mine does nothing.

2. I don't understand why my logo is so dark? The original texture file has much more vibrant oranges. Any idea what is effecting it?

Here is the light if that is the problem

[desert ermine]

It should but unfortunately it seems that images on mobile don't load in full size so I can't see shit

Just changing the alpha clip should do it

Even without the step node

[jolly quail]

Can we talk again at another point when you are at a desktop?

I guess I just feel like this will never be simplier of a shader

Or I can post a new topic. Maybe that is better?

[desert ermine]

As for second, I can't tell now either but that could happen if the shader is lit and doesn't receive enough light

If it's lit, try changing it to unlit

Or increasing the light

[jolly quail]

Ok. I'll just post a new thread.

I just figured it out. I needed to enable alpha clipping in the graph settings. It's really hard for newbies...that wasn't done anywhere in the video

@desert ermine Sorry to keep bothing you...so I'm still trying to do this tutorial. Due to question #2, I wanted to do an unlit shader. However, the tutorial is saying I have to connect to emission which is only available with a lit shader. I am just forced to have a lit shader for dissolve effects?

[desert ermine]

Yeah you always have to do that for this kind of dissolve

As you did above

It's just things change and vid is kind of old

[desert ermine]

You don't need to do anything. You don't need to emit light either if you don't want to.

The emission part is for that thin glowing outline that goes over your letters

You could not use that or you could multiply your texture color with another hdr color that's intense to get the same effect

Shaders are quite complicated and not noob friendly

Imo you should start from the beginning if you want to understand these things

Or just copy the shader...

[jolly quail]

What do you mean by start from the beginning?

I got the tutorial finished + working!

[desert ermine]

I meant if you want to learn about shaders, you need to start from the basics, otherwise you're just copying

[jolly quail]

Ok, that makes sense

[desert ermine]

These kinds of tutorials can't really teach you anthything unless you have proper knowledge

[desert ermine]

Glad to hear that

[jolly quail]

I just need to figure out this lighting issue. Can you point me in the right direction assuming that I have to use a lit shader?

I tried increasing the light intensity and I didn't see any impact

Oh wait

I found it

For some reason my light emission color was black

I must have done that at some point

Thats it!

Its actually working!

Crazy.

Thank you so so so much.

I really appreciate your patience.