Unity UI big problem with lacking materialpropertyblock for ui image

It's sad that this isn't supported. I came back to UGUI after trying UI Toolkit, where it appears the restrictions are even more severe on what can be done.

I'm starting to understand why games written in Unity have weak UIs. It's too hard to achieve basic UI feedback effects, MPBs being one way they could be achieved.

 

Disappointing Unity Technologies does nothing to solve this problem developers face for YEARS.

 

Hey Bladder,

didn’t they address this in here?

https://github.com/Unity-UI-Extensions/com.unity.uiextensions

 

Wow, incredibly rude name calling and shilling some unofficial 3rd party package. On top of that, you didn't provide any evidence that what you're linking to could even provide ability to utilize the URP SRP Batcher in the UI to batch custom materials in the UI nor with the builtin RP.

 

Lol hey Bladder I never even noticed - this is your name now. it’s not 3rd party. I’m pretty sure this resolves the issue. Thanks

 

which issue, and how does it resolve it?

I'm pretty sure you're misunderstanding the issue and the nature of the repo you've linked.

 

Maybe, I’ve been subscribed to this thread Forever. Hope you find a solution!

 

Here's hoping you know the issue at the core of the thread you've been subscribed to Forever.

 

I created a package to emulate material property blocks using IMaterialModifier
https://github.com/lgarczyn/AnimateUIMaterials

 

Bump!

 

I've published an asset to fix this issue, it uses the IMaterialModifier UI API

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/gui/animate-ui-materials-253197

 

anyone read this thread in 2023?

 

Unity Technologies, at least can you teach us how to accomplish this in the new UI Toolkit system?

 

As of 2023, there is still no MPB for Image. Holy cow.

 

no way !! its real !!

 

I know it's not exactly material property blocks for UI, but if your goal is to have a UI material instance which does not effect the original material, here is the solution for that:

Simply create a new material instance from the image material, then set the image's material to the new instance:

Material mat = Instantiate(image.material);

image.material = mat;

mat.SetInt("_Property", 0);

 

There's also some upcoming updates that makes it MUCH lighter on memory. If anyone wants to add features it would be nice to have some help.

 

Sadly, I don't know anything about Editor editing and coding, and am winding down my usage of Unity... due to unforeseen circumstances (Unity's new ToS and Runtime Fee)... but if you want/need any testing help, I'm yours.

 

Working on a new version that supports the full MaterialEditor feature set, I think some testing will definitely be needed

 

Ran into this today. Not surprised by Unity's lack of action.

 

Additional Shader Channels
You Save My Day! Thank for your share

 

This old post answers the question I had - Changing color through vertex colors seems incredibly inefficient. Imagine you have a mesh with 10s or 100s of vertices, not simple rectangles. It honestly makes no sense, particularly with the VertexHelper code which is an inefficient way to update the core mesh as well!!

I did hack my way around this issue with a custom graphic component to update the material instead of the mesh on color change, but this is still not optimal I imagine, you have to cache materials by color to avoid bad batch counts.

Edit: But I had no idea about IMaterialModifier. I still do not know how it works underneath, does it avoid adding to batch counts?

 

+1