Initial values for variables in CG shader not being set

Hey guys, quick question:
If I declare a variable outside of a function, it doesn't seem to get set to the initial value. What gives?

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. float myVar = 1;
3. float getVar()
4. {
5.      return myVar; // returns 0
6. }
7.  

 

I might be wrong, but I think it depends on the material: once you have a material associated with a shader, it is the material that specifies the values of all uniform variables - regardless of the values that you specify in the shader. Thus, changing the values in the shader won't change the values in the material.

 

It might be a bug or not maybe it is the way it was intended im not sure, but if you declare your variable and the value in CGINCLUDE - ENDCG, then you can use it in your functions.

 

Just tested it. Apparently, I was wrong and the initialization of uniforms doesn't matter at all. (Even if there is no property defined for it; otherwise the property's initialization is applied, except if the material has already a value.)

 

I ended up just setting it outside of the shader with Shader.SetGlobalFloat. That works for me, although it would've been nice to have some default values to work with.

 

In Compute shaders (hlsl), the initialization only works when the variable is marked as static. When you do that, the variable also becomes invisible to the application (Perhaps that is why initialization is ignored in other cases, Unity might be overriding it).

I'm guessing it works similarly for Cg.