Unity 2018 Shaders and Effects Cookbook

Description

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. 1: 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 Introduction Creating a basic Standard Shader Adding properties to a shader Using properties in a Surface Shader 3: 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 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 Introduction Understanding the metallic setup Adding transparency to PBR Creating mirrors and reflective surfaces Baking lights in your scene 6: 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 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 Introduction Techniques to make shaders more efficient Profiling your shaders Modifying our shaders for mobile 9: 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 Introduction Creating an old movie screen effect Creating a night vision screen effect 11: 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 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