Tech Research

Ink & Paint Shaders

by: Niels Keetels

Goal(s):

Transform ink & paint behavior and aesthetics into materials and shaders that can be used with Unity3D.

Key areas of interest:

Color fading and bleeding such as in watercolor painting
Ink blots and stripes

-- Ink experiments by Meindert Ekkelenkamp --

Map blur shader behavior

float4 MapBlur(sampler2D map, float channel, float2 uv, float amount) { float4 col = fixed4(0,0,0,1); amount *= sin(_Time*10.f); float halfPi = 3.141592654f * 0.5f; float angle = channel * 2.0f * 3.141592654f + halfPi; float ca = cos(angle); float sa = sin(angle); int iterations = 1 + abs((int)(_Iterations)); float inv = 1.0f / iterations; amount /= iterations; for (int i = 0; i < iterations; i++) { float u = 2.0f * uv.x + amount * i * sa; float v = 2.0f * uv.y + amount * i * ca; col += (tex2D(map, float2(u,v))) * inv; } float su = uv.x * 3 + (amount*2) * sa; float sv = uv.y * 3 + (amount*2) * ca; return col; }

Flow map behavior

float3 flowDir = tex2D(_FlowMap, IN.texcoord2) * 2.0f - 1.0f;flowDir *= _FlowSpeed;
float phase0 = frac(_Time[1] * 0.5f + 0.5f);float phase1 = frac(_Time[1] * 0.5f + 1.0f);
half3 tex0 = tex2D(_MainTex, IN.texcoord + flowDir.xy * phase0);half3 tex1 = tex2D(_MainTex, IN.texcoord + flowDir.xy * phase1);
half3 norm0 = tex2D(_NormalTex, IN.texcoord + flowDir.xy * phase0);half3 norm1 = tex2D(_NormalTex, IN.texcoord + flowDir.xy * phase1);
float flowLerp = abs((0.5f - phase0) / 0.5f);half3 finalColor = lerp(tex0, tex1, flowLerp);
float dif = max(0.0, dot(IN.normal , normalize(_WorldSpaceLightPos0.xyz)));
fixed4 c = float4(finalColor * dif, 1.0f) * IN.color;
c.rgb *= c.a;return c;

Water Shaders

by: Meindert Ekkelenkamp

Goal(s):

Creating stylistic water wave & surface effects.

Key areas of interest:

Displacement of 3D mesh surfaces (vertex positions)
Distortion of textures (refraction)
Blending of textures / Masks

Used Tool(s):

Node based visual scripting shader tool: Shaderforge (now free Unity plugin, see github on site)

Alternative(s):

More advanced: Amplify Shader Editor (paid Unity plugin)
Build-in tool in Unity 2018 & higher: Shader Graph (compatible with also Unity's lightweight & high dynamic render pipeline)

-- Wave Mesh Displacement --

-- Wave Scroll Animation --

-- Surface Refraction --

Breakdown of work: -- pending --

REF: Tutorials

The Book of ShadersGentle step-by-step guide through the abstract and complex universe of Fragment Shaders.

Art That Moves: Creating Animated Materials with Shader Graph - Unity Technologies BlogIn Unity 2018.2 we added the “Vertex Position” input to Shader Graph, allowing you to adjust and animate your meshes. In this blog post, I’ll demonstrate how you can create your own vertex animation shaders, and provide some common examples such as a wind and a water shader. If you’re new to Shader Graph you …

'Graphics Runner' Blog Article: Animating Water Using Flow Maps

Blog Article: Animating Water Using Flow Maps
Based on gamestudio Valve's tech presentation talk at SIGGRAPH 2010: http://advances.realtimerendering.com/s2010/index.html
Presentation PDF slides: Waterflow Portal 2

Tutorial: Reconstructing Normals

During the displacement of vertices by a grayscale 'heightmap', the surface normals, from which correct lighting & shading can be read, maintain in their original position state. So these need to be re-calculated to express correct or matching surface normals while displacing.
This tutorial explains how to achieve/filx this in the node-based shader tool Shader Forge.

Recommended Resources

Free Open Source Ocean Shader for Unity:

Don't want to go through all the trouble of creating the shader yourself, then this is a great open source solution to tryout:
Download link: https://github.com/crest-ocean/crest

-- Check the compatibility (asset is still in development) ! --

Vegetation Shaders

by: Meindert Ekkelenkamp

Goal(s):

Creating stylistic waving vegetation effects.

Key areas of interest:

Displacement of 3D mesh surfaces (vertex positions)
Distortion of textures (refraction)
Blending of textures / Masks

Used Tool(s):

Node based visual scripting shader tool: Shaderforge (now free Unity plugin, see github on site)

Alternative(s):

More advanced: Amplify Shader Editor (paid Unity plugin)
Build-in tool in Unity 2018 & higher: Shader Graph (compatible with also Unity's lightweight & high dynamic render pipeline)

-- Canopy & Leaves Mesh Displacement --

-- Reed Grass Mesh Displacement --

-- Water Plant Texture & Mesh Displace --

Breakdown of work: -- pending --

REF: Tutorials

Recommended Resources

Dynamic Wind Shaders for Unity:

Don't want to go through all the trouble of creating the shader yourself, then this might be a great & cheap solution for you:
Link to Unity Asset Store: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/vfx/shaders/advanced-dynamic-shaders-unified-wind-shaders-for-any-vegetation-115838

-- Check compatibility with Unity ! --

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