Shader Forge - A visual, node-based shader editor

3 quick questions:

1: How do I do something by view distance, for example if I wanted to make vertex offset raise a face using normal direction as I moved further away and lower a face as I move closer? I have tried a number of things unfortunately all without success... is this even possible?

2: Using the alpha node stops normal maps from working and the shader from recieving shadows. I understand that under normal curcumstances using normal maps with alpha'd textures is a bad idea, however in this case it isn't as all that would be 'behind' the alpha is the terrain

3: Is it possible to have a shader where the position of the actual mesh is 'where' the mesh is drawn, but I'd like to offset the mesh. A usage case example is if I wanted a decal ON the terrain without having to have it raised up to avoid Z-Fighting. Is this possible?

Also great news on the release, you should advertise that you have plenty of tutorials and documentation to back SF up, along with a really easy to use and understand interface.

 

Distance( viewPos, worldPos ) * normalDir * 0.03 (Or similar, low value)

Normals seem to work just fine when using alpha, are you sure it's not working? However, I do see that it doesn't receive shadows, nor casts proper shadows. I might be able to add features to mask the shadow there as well.

Throw in a Vector3( 0, 0.002, 0 ) into the vertex offset, and the mesh will be raised on the GPU instead of being positioned slightly above. I'm not sure if you can keep them on the exact same location yet sort one above the other

Thanks!
I only have one tutorial so far though

 

Awesome I'll have a mess around a bit later... wait there is a DISTANCE node... how on heavens earth did I miss that lol. Thanks for the responses to questions as well.

Can I make a suggestion, have a questions and answers section on the website, where the most asked questions have their answers posted about how shaders are put together/work. It'd be really useful reference

 

Hehe, it's easy to miss nodes, there are quite a lot of them

I will try to avoid answering too many shader specific questions, as I'm hoping the community can be more self-sustained in doing so to save me time to work on the actual product. I'll most likely put up forums on the website so people can discuss shaders, and keep UserEcho as a feature request / bug report page!
That said, a FAQ might be useful for more general questions that are common.

 

For me, pictures/videos of some very good looking scenes showcasing some great shaders made with ShaderForge would be the best showcase, purely because I'm a programmer, and I want to be able to convince artists quickly simply that Unity is not what makes Unity games look bad, which is proving to be harder than it should be

 

A scene is currently being worked on for that very reason! It's set to be finished when Shader Forge leaves beta and goes 1.0!

 

Wonderful, can't wait! Keep up the good work man

 

My money is waiting. This looks great!

 

Maybe this is a feature that already exists, but would it be possible to (eventually) have a mode where I can have a light orbit around the example sphere? It'd be really handy for testing shaders that have transmission effects.

 

Possibly yeah, a similar request is one of the most voted features: http://shaderforge.userecho.com/topic/251159-move-the-light-source-in-the-preview-window/

 

Shader forge will be able to do realtime reflections of a scenee lets say a sphere surrounded by a whole level?

 

If you set up cameras and render a cubemap in real-time, then yes, it'll work in SF, but there's no built-in quick way of doing it

 

Is there an ETA on shader forge yet?

 

I will submit it to the asset store in about 24 hours, after which it will take maybe a day or two for the asset store team to verify it - assuming everything goes well

 

**** **! and take my money!

 

Can you already say something about the price (or did I maybe miss it?)?
Ok, maybe I shouldn't say this but if this turns out to be as good as it looks, the price won't matter for me anyway

This tool looks really, really promising and I can't wait to get my hands on it!

 

Thanks! Glad you're excited about it
And yes, on the previous page:

 

So if I wanted image-based lighting/reflections using a cubemap, could I do it with a shader made with this or would I need more such as skyshop/Unity Pro?

 

You don't need Skyshop or Unity Pro in order to make IBL shaders in Shader Forge! However, Skyshop is incredibly useful for making diffuse and specular cubemaps properly

 

Do you know how the license is going to behave? Do we need to buy a license per seat, or is it a tool we can upload into our trunk and everyone on that project can have access to it?

 

It's per-seat for everyone who will use it

 

Just a few hours until it's submitted to the asset store!
The website should be more or less ready - what do you think? Anything missing?

http://acegikmo.com/shaderforge/

 

Just a "purchase now" button.

 

I think people have been posting about 4 "Shut up and take my money" images in here, and another two over in the Polycount forum thread.

Might need to make a "Shut up and take my money" button due to popular request

 

Um, yes you really need to.

 

Website is looking mighty fine mate. Now add more tutorials

 

I should probably fix the herd of final-hour bugs that jumped me first

 

Potential buyer here this is simply amazing.
Will probably buy it while it's still in Beta.

*insert "Shut up and take my money" image here* xD

 

I can use all of shader forge's power in unity free?

Also i remember see one image where a sphere was emitting light, if that was from shader forge, that means there is a shader that can emit light from something like a rectangle or custom mesh? would i be able to reporduce something like this

 

The spherical area lights was a specific shader experiment I did to try out the custom lighting features. It might make it into Shader Forge later
And no, it was a very tailor made effect, it wouldn't work on any other mesh, it's just for spheres.

(The link seems broken by the way)

 

Did you submit it to the Asset Store?, my money wants to travel to your account.

 

Not yet! I'm fixing the last few bugs, and need to finalize the asset store images.
It's hard to find a good selling screenshot/image that looks both appealing and informative.

(I'm staying up all night)

 

No rush, take your time
I'm sure i will enjoy your hard work when i purchase it.

 

I don't know. Some rush. I really want to try this program.
How did it go? Did it make it out to Unity for approval?

 

I didn't sleep all night, and just as I was about ready to upload, git refused to let me revert a 100MB+ file I had accidentally included in version control, so I couldn't get things over onto the Windows machine to make a .dll build.

I managed to revert all the damage caused, and now I'm quite literally minutes away from submitting it

 

How exciting is it =)

You gonna be rich now!

 

waitting patiently to buy it.

Acegikmo, I don't know if exist, but there is something to share our shaders made in shader-forge? would be nice if you release a web-page that we can post our shaders and we can see the nodes. something visual. select a shader from one person and it expand showing the nodes and connections.
(Sorry if ain't clear enought on my explanation, hope you can understand)

 

I understand you completely!
It all depends on how big this gets. If loads of people do use it, and want a centralized place to share shaders, it can of course be arranged, though it will take quite some time to get it all up and running. I think, at the moment, bugs and features in the editor itself should have higher priority.

 

Great!
I agree with you. Until version 1.0 release this is not priority at all. After official 1.0 version release would be intteresting to see if the community want a centralized sharing space. (I'd love to)

Thank you so much! :mrgreen:

 

I am sorry if this has been asked before, but this is a topic always very unclear to me.
If I would be the only one on my four people team who uses (the awsome) Shaderforge to create shaders, does this mean:

A) We will have to buy four licences, since our project team consisting of four people uses shaders made with it, or

B) It is ok if I buy only one license since I am the only one actively using it within the team?

 

@Acegikmo Sent you a PM

 

Well, if the others don't open SF, they aren't technically using SF as a tool, just like someone playing a game made in Unity isn't using Unity as a tool
So, to be super clear: In your case, you only need one license, if you're the only one who's going to open SF.
(You are very welcome to get multiple ones if you want to be more flexible within your team, or want to support SF a little extra!)

 

Thank you for the fast response and making this super clear.
The thing is, if we would have to get 4 licences, Shaderforge would have sadly been no option for me at all, but now I will get it for sure.
Now I am hammering f5 and wait for the release .

 

I disagree. People have been dying for a shader editor but to our disappointment Unity hasn't gotten around to it. I expect shaderforge to be amongst the top paid apps of the store.

Regarding a shader database, I really wish there was one that was for Unity. There is the wiki, but it's unorganized and not useful for those not familiar with shader code.

 

Now I have to agree with you.
Please correct me, if I'm wrong: If i'm not mistake, I remember Acegikmo told me (or posted here) that if the community ask for... he'll add a option to load shader scripts. would be nice to change those in the wiki into shader-forge.

 

Currently there's no way of loading arbitrary shaders into Shader Forge, and there most likely won't be for two very simple reasons:

1. It takes a very, *very* long time of advanced code parsing, as well as adapting the SF layout to support all the possible operations, functions, loops, structures, that shader code can hold.
2. I don't think it's useful enough to be worth the time.

The time is much better spent improving SF in other areas, I believe

But yes, a centralized shader code sharing area would be useful; we'll see what happens!

 

Yea, reverse engineering a shader would seem unnecessary when the reason for SF to exist is to easily create shaders, thus recreating the one you'd like to load.

Full-screen post effects shader creation!

 

Request it!
The feedback website should be publicly available for non-testers now

@SteveB: http://shaderforge.userecho.com/

 

Ohhhhh SNAP!

...about goddamn time...err...congrats Acegikmo!! Haha...