Question Entities Graphics and custom shader properties issue

I have a custom URP Unlit Shader created in Shader Graph with boolean property that I want to set on a per instance basis in a System. From the documentation it seems like it should be a straight forward thing to do, but try as I might, it's not working for me.

If needed I can post snippets of code, but hopefully the following description will trigger someone to say "oh yeah, you need to do .... "

I have created a managed prefab, used the Baker to convert it to an entity, then used this entity to instantiate multiple entities using EntityManager.Instantiate() . The material on the prefab uses a custom URP Unlit shader with a custom property that is "Exposed" and has the "Shader Declaration" set to "Hybrid Per Instance". I created the IComponentData struct with the MaterialProperty set to the "Reference" name of my exposed property.
I have done this as per the manual page:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/c...phics@1.0/manual/material-overrides-code.html

I am setting the property in a ISystem using my custom aspect. The component reference in the aspect is declared as a RefRW, and I am setting the value using:

Code (CSharp):

1. myAspect.myComponent.ValueRW.Activated = 1f;

In the inspector I can see that the property is being set on the Entity instance, but it does not seem to be having an effect on the shader.

What am I missing?

Unity version: 2022.2.0f1
Entities: 1.0.0-pre.15
Entities Graphics: 1.0.0-pre.15
Universal RP: 14.0.4

 

I am not 100 % sure but I seem to remember that boolean properties can have some unexpected behaviours. It seems that your IComponentData is a float? If it is a bool in the shader graph maybe change it to an float/int/uint and add a comparison block in the graph to output a bool.

 

Well you got it. According to what I read a boolean in a shader should be set by a float in a IComponentData, but this turns out not to be the case currently.

So I did as you suggested and replaced the boolean property in the Shader with a float property. Then I changed the Predicate in the Branch node to be fed the "Out" of a new Comparison Node, with the Comparison node checking if the new float property was 1 or 0. This just feels wrong, and a hack, but it works so ...