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Unity 2018 Shaders and Effects Cookbook: Over 70 Recipes to Help You Transform Your Games into a Visually Stunning Masterpiece
Bring realism to your games by mastering post-processing effects and advanced shading techniques in Unity 2018
Key FeaturesLearn the secrets of creating AAA quality shaders without writing long algorithmsMaster shader programming through easy-to-follow examplesCreate stunning visual effects that can be used in 3D gamesBook DescriptionSince 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.
What you will learnUnderstand physically based rendering to fit the aesthetic of your gameWrite shaders from scratch in ShaderLab and HLSL/CgCombine shader programming with interactive scripts to add life to your materialsDesign efficient shaders for mobile platforms without sacrificing their realismUse state-of-the-art techniques, such as volumetric explosions and fur shadingMaster the math and algorithms behind the most used lighting modelsUnderstand how shader models have evolved and how you can create your ownWho this book is forUnity Shaders and Effects Cookbook is for developers who want to create their first shaders in Unity 2018 or wish to take their game to a whole new level by adding professional post-processing effects. A solid understanding of Unity is required to get the most from this book.
Table of ContentsPost Processing StackCreating your First ShaderSurface Shaders and Texture MappingUnderstanding Lighting ModelsPhysically Based RenderingVertex FunctionsFragment Shaders and Grab PassesMobile Shader AdjustmentsScreen Effects with Unity Render TexturesGAMEPLAY AND SCREEN EFFECTSADVANCED SHADING TECHNIQUES Shader Graph
Key FeaturesLearn the secrets of creating AAA quality shaders without writing long algorithmsMaster shader programming through easy-to-follow examplesCreate stunning visual effects that can be used in 3D gamesBook DescriptionSince 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.
What you will learnUnderstand physically based rendering to fit the aesthetic of your gameWrite shaders from scratch in ShaderLab and HLSL/CgCombine shader programming with interactive scripts to add life to your materialsDesign efficient shaders for mobile platforms without sacrificing their realismUse state-of-the-art techniques, such as volumetric explosions and fur shadingMaster the math and algorithms behind the most used lighting modelsUnderstand how shader models have evolved and how you can create your ownWho this book is forUnity Shaders and Effects Cookbook is for developers who want to create their first shaders in Unity 2018 or wish to take their game to a whole new level by adding professional post-processing effects. A solid understanding of Unity is required to get the most from this book.
Table of ContentsPost Processing StackCreating your First ShaderSurface Shaders and Texture MappingUnderstanding Lighting ModelsPhysically Based RenderingVertex FunctionsFragment Shaders and Grab PassesMobile Shader AdjustmentsScreen Effects with Unity Render TexturesGAMEPLAY AND SCREEN EFFECTSADVANCED SHADING TECHNIQUES Shader Graph
394 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 29, 2018
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12 people want to read
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 13, 2023
An occasional fight to get the current version of Unity to work with the code, but isn't that always the case with tech textbooks? Given that there is already a more recent edition of this book, it hold up quite well. I got nearly everything to work. Notable exceptions being the heat map shader, and profiling using OpenGL has been deprecated with the Metal framework.
There's a lot in this book to learn from, besides all that. I even got the clearly new Shader Graph section at the end working. It's clear from the time of the book's writing that this was a brand new feature. You do need to do some fiddling to get it to work, but it does work. That means adding the LWRP package and creating a render pipeline asset. All in all, I'm glad I stuck with this version of the book instead of just dumping it and getting the updated one. I would recommend that folks get the newer version just to make their own lives easier.
There's a lot in this book to learn from, besides all that. I even got the clearly new Shader Graph section at the end working. It's clear from the time of the book's writing that this was a brand new feature. You do need to do some fiddling to get it to work, but it does work. That means adding the LWRP package and creating a render pipeline asset. All in all, I'm glad I stuck with this version of the book instead of just dumping it and getting the updated one. I would recommend that folks get the newer version just to make their own lives easier.
Displaying 1 of 1 review