Beginner's Guide to Unity Shader Graph: Create Immersive Game Worlds Using Unity’s Shader Tool

✍ Scribed by Álvaro Alda

• Publisher: Apress
• Year: 2023
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 453
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Discover how shaders can enhance your game and mesmerize players by making graphic gameplay elements more realistic and attractive. This book provides easy-to-follow recipes that will show you how to leverage the Unity Shader Graph to create more immersive, enjoyable games.

Author Álvaro Alda takes you through each effect step by step, so that you gain a foundational understanding of how they are created using the Shader Graph tool. Practical projects help you put what you’re learning into context, from simple effects like 3D scan lines to more complicated effects such as black holes, bubble particles, water, and even interactive snow. Twelve different effects are demonstrated, to cover almost everything related to shader graph.

On completing this book, you will have a thorough understanding of the Shader Graph tool and samples to replicate and continue learning from. Whether you are an indie game developer or technical artist, Beginner's Guide to Unity Shader Graph will give you the confidence to use the Shader Graph tool to create games that will keep players glued to their screens.

What You Will Learn

• Understand the purpose and use of every node and function in Shader Graph
• Gain a working knowledge of the mathematics needed to use the fragment and vertex shaders
• Create complex effects with Shader Graph using post processing and taking full advantage of the URP of the Unity 3D engine
• Develop procedural textures using mathematical nodes in Shader Graph

Who Is This Book For

Technical artists, indie developers, and game developers with little to no knowledge of shaders, but who have basic knowledge of Unity. As the Shader Graph in Unity is similar to other shader editors like Amplify, Blender material nodes and Unreal shaders, this book can be used as reference when working with other platforms and game engines different from Unity.

✦ Table of Contents

Table of Contents
About the Author
About the Technical Reviewer
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Introduction to Shaders
What Is a Shader?
Computational Objects and Meshes
Vertices
Normals
UV Coordinates or Texture Coordinates
Vertex Color
Triangles and Polygons
Programming Shaders
Vertex-Fragment Shader
Shader Programming Languages
Shader Graph
Shaders’ Mathematical Foundations
Vectors
Adding Vectors
Scalar Product
Coordinate Systems
Object Space
World Space
View Space
Summary
Chapter 2: Shader Graph
Create a Unity 3D Project
Unity Editor
Create Your First Shader
Create a Material
Rendering Pipelines
URP Pipeline
Upgrading a Project to URP
Install URP Package
Set Up a URP Asset
Upgrade Previous Materials
Shader Graph Editor
Main Preview
Blackboard
Graph Inspector
Graph Settings
Node Settings
Master Stack
Vertex Block
Position Node
Normal Node
Tangent Node
Fragment Block
Base Color
Normal
Metallic
Smoothness
Emission
Post-Processing Effects
Ambient Occlusion
Alpha
Specular Color
Shader Graph Elements
Nodes
Create Nodes
Ports and Connections
Node Previews
Group Nodes
Properties
Properties Settings
Reference
Exposed
Default
Modes
Redirect Elbow
Sticky Notes
Summary
Chapter 3: Commonly Used Nodes
UV Node
One Minus Node
Add Node
Clamp Node
Multiply Node
Sine Node
Time Node
Remap Node
Lerp Node
Fraction Node
Step Node
SmoothStep Node
Power Node
Position Node
Dot Product Node
Posterize Node
Procedural Noise Nodes
Simple Noise
Gradient Noise
Voronoi Noise Node
Fresnel Node
Summary
Chapter 4: Dynamic Shaders
Scanline 3D
Display Object Coordinates with Position Node
Define Vertical Gradient Using the Split Node
Use Multiply and Fraction Nodes for Repetition
Dynamic Effect with Time and Add Nodes
Adjust Contrast with Power Node
Add Custom Color
Dot Product Node to Set a Custom Orientation
Expose Properties
Arrow Pattern
Create and Set Up a Line Renderer
Create a Diagonal Line Pattern
Create Vertical Symmetry with Absolute Node
Hard-Edged Arrow Pattern with Fraction and Step Nodes
Move the Arrow Along the Line Renderer
Customize the Arrow Pattern Color
Dissolve Effect
Noisy Texture Using the Gradient Noise Node
Gradual Dissolve Effect Using Add Node
Dynamic Ping-Pong Dissolving Effect
Dissolve Effect Along Custom Direction
Create a Dissolving Edge with Color
Hologram Shader
Set a Vertical Gradient with Screen Position Node
Repeat the Pattern Using Fraction Node
Randomize the Pattern Using the Noise Node
Create a Moving Pattern Using Add and Time Nodes
Add Color to the Gradient Hologram Lines
Emphasize the Effect with Fresnel Node
Create Blink Effect Using Logic and Random Nodes
Refactoring Shaders
Summary
Chapter 5: Vertex Shaders
Procedural Fish Animation
Import and Set Up the Fish Mesh
Access the Pointing Direction Coordinate of the Fish
Create a Wave Pattern Using Sine Node
Make the Wave Movement Dynamic
Deforming the Mesh along a Selected Axis
Adjust the Wave Pattern Intensity
Volumetric Snow
Import 3D Models to Scene
Define a Snow Direction Mask
Extrude Geometry Along Normals
Fixing Broken Extruded Mesh
Adding Masked Color
Adding Glowy Fresnel Effect
Spawning Objects from a Black Hole
Initial Setup
Collapse the Vertices to the Center of the Mesh
Set a Collapsing Destiny Singularity
Collapse the Vertices by Distance
Adding a Collapsing Glowing Color
Summary
Chapter 6: Distortion Shaders
Ice Texture Refraction
Initial Setup
Modify the Scene Color to Create Distortion
Use an Ice Texture to Modify the Scene Color
Customize the Shader with the Ice Texture and Color
Black Hole Distortion
Creation of the Center of the Black Hole
Using Particle Systems for a Billboard Effect
Creating a Spiral Texture Using the Twirl Node
Modifying the Scene Color Using the Spiral Texture
Masking the Spiral Texture
Adding Dynamic Rotation to the Spiral Texture
Summary
Chapter 7: Advanced Shaders
Cartoon Water Shader
Initial Setup
Accessing the Depth Buffer to Create Foam with the Scene Depth Node
Scene Depth Node
Implementing the Depth Information in the Shader
Controlling the Depth Gradient with Divide Node
Create Water Caustics
Using the Voronoi Noise Node
Using SubGraph to Reuse Groups of Nodes
Add Radial Deformation Using Radial Shear
Adding Movement to the Voronoi Cells
Adding Extra Caustic Layers
Adding Color to the Water Caustics Texture
Deforming the Vertices of the Water Surface
Iridescent Bubble Shader
Initial Setup
Create and Set Up Reflections
Reflection Probes and Reflection Cubemaps
Creating an Iridescent Dynamic Pattern
Adding Thin-Film Interference Gradient
Adding Rim Transparency and Color
Adding Random Vertex Displacement
Summary
Chapter 8: Interactive Snow Effect
Scene Setup
Give Movement to the Character
Set Up Your IDE
Create a Character Movement Script
Snow Plane 3D Object
Subdivided Plane Creation
Import the Plane to Unity
Interactive Snow Shader Graph
Shader Graph Setup
Apply Displacement Using Noise
Apply Snow Color and Occlusion
Interact with the Snow
Using a Render Texture
Painting the Character Path
Recording Only the Character Path
Adding a New Culling Mask to the Particles
Update the Render Texture Camera Culling Mask
Update the Main Camera Culling Mask
Render Texture as a Displacement Mask
Summary
Index