How to pack a procedural self created normal map for standard unity shaders?

Hi everyone,

I have created a procedural normal map that is unpacked. Now I want to use in the new U5 standard shaders. The standard shaders use unpacknormal() for sure.

How can I pack my "unpacked normal map" in my shader, so it's usable in standard Unity5 shaders or others?

Or would it be possible to flag my RT as normal unpacked, so that the standard shaders can work with internally?

Thanks and kind regards

 

From what I can see how UnpackNormal is implemented in UnityGC.inc, unpacking depends on the UNITY_NO_DXT5nm define. I guess UNITY_NO_DXT5nm is to detect whether DXT5nm is available on a certain platform. If that's the case, then I'd say:

If DXT5nm is supported, x is stored in the alpha channel, y is stored in the green channel and z is being reconstructed on the fly.
If DXT5nm is not supported, the normal map simply holds the xyz information in its rgb channels.

In order to use your generated normal map, using the UnpackNormal macro where UNITY_NO_DXT5nm is active, you'd generate the texture data like red=0, green=y, blue=0, alpha=x (where x,y correspond to the normal components).

I hope it makes sense!

 

I use the result of the my normal in a frag shader. This works well so far.
:

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. float4 n1 = tex2D(myN1, IN.myN1UV.xy);
3. o.Normal = n1*2 - 1;
4.  

But to use it with UnpackNormal() "(you'd store red=0, green=y, blue=0, alpha=x.)"
I tried this, but that doesn't work.

:

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. half4 n1 = half4(0, IN.myN1UV.x, 0, IN.myN1UV.y);
3. o.Normal = UnpackNormal(n1);
4.  

Can you drop me some line of code how to?

 

It looks like myN1UV holds your texture coordinates, rather than the unpacked normal data. It should be something like this, I guess:

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. half4 sample = tex2D(myN1, IN.myN1UV.xy); // unpacked normal
3. half4 packedNormal = half4(0, sample.y, 0, sample.x);
4. o.Normal = UnpackNormal(packedNormal);
5.  

 

Thanks a lot Peter!