Book Image

Unity 2018 Shaders and Effects Cookbook - Third Edition

By : John P. Doran, Alan Zucconi
Book Image

Unity 2018 Shaders and Effects Cookbook - Third Edition

By: John P. Doran, Alan Zucconi

Overview of this book

Since their introduction to Unity, shaders have been seen as notoriously difficult to understand and implement in games. Complex mathematics has always stood in the way of creating your own shaders and attaining the level of realism you crave. Unity 2018 Shaders and Effects Cookbook changes that by giving you a recipe-based guide to creating shaders using Unity. It will show you everything you need to know about vectors, how lighting is constructed with them, and how textures are used to create complex effects without the heavy math. This book starts by teaching you how to use shaders without writing code with the post-processing stack. Then, you’ll learn how to write shaders from scratch, build up essential lighting, and finish by creating stunning screen effects just like those in high-quality 3D and mobile games. You'll discover techniques, such as normal mapping, image-based lighting, and animating your models inside a shader. We'll explore how to use physically based rendering to treat light the way it behaves in the real world. At the end, we’ll even look at Unity 2018’s new Shader Graph system. With this book, what seems like a dark art today will be second nature by tomorrow.

Related Content you might be interested in

Current Title:

Small book image
Unity 2018 Shaders and Effects Cookbook - Third Edition
John P. Doran | Alan Zucconi
Jun, 2018 | 392 pages
Small book image
Become a Unity Shaders Guru
Mina Pêcheux
Jul, 2023 | 492 pages
Small book image
Unity 5 for Android Essentials
Valera Cogut
Aug, 2015 | 200 pages
Small book image
Learn ARCore - Fundamentals of Google ARCore
Micheal Lanham
Mar, 2018 | 274 pages
Table of Contents (14 chapters)
Preface
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Sections
Get in touch
Free Chapter
1
Post Processing Stack
Post Processing Stack
Introduction
Installing the Post Processing Stack
Getting a filmic look using grain, vignetting, and depth of field
Mimicking real life with bloom and anti-aliasing
Setting mood with color grading
Creating a horror game look with fog
2
Creating Your First Shader
Creating Your First Shader
Introduction
Creating a basic Standard Shader
Adding properties to a shader
Using properties in a Surface Shader
3
Surface Shaders and Texture Mapping
Surface Shaders and Texture Mapping
Introduction
Diffuse shading
Accessing and modifying packed arrays
Adding a texture to a shader
Scrolling textures by modifying UV values
Creating a shader with normal mapping
Creating a transparent material
Creating a Holographic Shader
Packing and blending textures
Creating a circle around your terrain
4
Understanding Lighting Models
Understanding Lighting Models
Introduction
Creating a custom diffuse lighting model
Creating a toon shader
Creating a Phong Specular type
Creating a BlinnPhong Specular type
Creating an Anisotropic Specular type
5
Physically-Based Rendering
Physically-Based Rendering
Introduction
Understanding the metallic setup
Adding transparency to PBR
Creating mirrors and reflective surfaces
Baking lights in your scene
6
Vertex Functions
Vertex Functions
Introduction
Accessing a vertex color in a Surface Shader
Animating vertices in a Surface Shader
Extruding your models
Implementing a snow shader
Implementing a volumetric explosion
7
Fragment Shaders and Grab Passes
Fragment Shaders and Grab Passes
Introduction
Understanding Vertex and Fragment Shaders
Using the grab pass to draw behind objects
Implementing a Glass Shader
Implementing a Water Shader for 2D games
8
Mobile Shader Adjustment
Mobile Shader Adjustment
Introduction
Techniques to make shaders more efficient
Profiling your shaders
Modifying our shaders for mobile
9
Screen Effects with Unity Render Textures
Screen Effects with Unity Render Textures
Introduction
Setting up the screen effects script system
Using brightness, saturation, and contrast with screen effects
Using basic Photoshop-like Blend modes with screen effects
Using the Overlay Blend mode with screen effects
10
Gameplay and Screen Effects
Gameplay and Screen Effects
Introduction
Creating an old movie screen effect
Creating a night vision screen effect
11
Advanced Shading Techniques
Advanced Shading Techniques
Introduction
Using Unity's built-in CgInclude files
Making your shader world in a modular way with CgInclude
Implementing a Fur Shader
Implementing Heatmaps with arrays
12
Shader Graph
Shader Graph
Introduction
Creating a Shader Graph project
Implementing a simple a Shader Graph
Exposing properties to the Inspector via Shader Graph
Implementing a glowing highlight system
13
Other Books You May Enjoy
Other Books You May Enjoy
Leave a review - let other readers know what you think

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Post Processing Stack, introduces readers to the Post Processing Stack, which will allow users to tweak their game's appearance without having to write any additional scripts.

Chapter 2, Creating Your First Shader, introduces you to the world of shader coding in Unity. You will build some basic shaders and learn how to introduce tweakable properties in your shaders to make them more interactive.

Chapter 3, Surface Shaders and Texture Mapping, covers the most common and useful techniques that you can implement with Surface Shaders, including how to use textures and normal maps for your models.

Chapter 4, Understanding Lighting Models, gives you an in-depth explanation of how shaders model the behavior of light. This chapter teaches you how to create custom lighting models used to simulate special effects, such as toon shading.

Chapter 5, Physically-Based Rendering in Unity 5, shows you that physically-based rendering is the standard technology used by Unity 5 to bring realism to your games. This chapter explains how to make the most out of it by mastering transparencies, reflective surfaces, and global illumination.

Chapter 6, Vertex Functions, teaches you how shaders can be used to alter the geometry of an object. This chapter introduces vertex modifiers and uses them to bring volumetric explosions, snow shaders, and other effects to life.

Chapter 7, Fragment Shaders and Grab Passes, explains how to use grab passes to make materials that emulate the deformations generated by semi-transparent materials.

Chapter 8, Mobile Shader Adjustment, helps you optimize your shaders to get the most out of any device.

Chapter 9, Screen Effects with Unity Render Textures, shows you how to create special effects and visuals that would otherwise be impossible to achieve.

Chapter 10, Gameplay and Screen Effects, tells you how post-processing effects can be used to complement your gameplay, simulating, for instance, a night-vision effect.

Chapter 11, Advanced Shading Techniques, introduces the most advanced techniques in this book, such as fur shading and heatmap rendering.

Chapter 12, Shader Graph, explains how to set up a project to use Unity's newly added Shader Graph editor. We cover how to create a simple shader graph, how to expose properties, and how to interact with the shader graph through code using a glow highlight system.

Previous Section
Next Section