The Better Lit Shader : Replacement Lit Shader for URP/HDRP/Standard

**EDIT : So after right-clicking the shaders and reimported them, both the pink and srp batcher issues are gone. Kind of weird though but eh! **

I just bought Better Lit and tried to assign the shader to an existing HDRP object and it turns out pink. I'm on Unity 2020 LTS with HDRP 10.6

There are no errors in the console so I wonder what could be wrong?



It also seems like the shaders are not compatible with SRP Batcher, can you confirm?

 

I am looking for a performant shader (movile VR) that needs to support a texture map on the color channel, fake reflections (environment images on reflection probe or anything that gives a similar effect) and lighing from environment lighting (no actual shadows needed). Will Better Lit Shaders be suited for that? Thanks!

 

I recently got better lit shader and is wondering if it can generate a better result for what I'm trying to attempt.
I want to have a more natural noise like below, but the noise generate in better lit is very unnatural.

Spoiler: Comparison

 

There are several noise types available, and you should play with the scale and contrast of the noise to get something softer (looks like your amplitude is cranked so that things transition from 0 to 1 very fast).

 

I assigned my own noise textured and it worked perfectly. Thank you.

 

Can I do the equivalent of the standard cutout shader with BetterLit? I have some materials that use the cutout feature for edges, etc. I've tried around with BetterLit, but I can't get it done. Setting opacity to alpha just creates a strange look-through effect (probably the alpha shader on the texture isn't set up the way the shader expects?)

Here are two pictures to show that effect, one with alpha on and one with full opacity. The wooden beams show through when I set alpha:

 

there’s an alpha cut slider in the main texture layer..

 

Yes, I tried that. It has no effect on the see-through issue.

Here is another screenshot showing the issue more clearly - it only affects the same mesh. Other meshes are hidden, but parts of the same mesh that are actually behind the first part (here the inside of the other side of the roof) are rendered above the part that should be in front, hiding it:




Zoomed-out view for context:





This is the texture used there. No alpha on the roof part (the top), only on the edges (the bottom), so the roof should be opaque, and when using the standard shader, it is:

 

Ohhookay ! I got it. Sorry for not getting what you were saying there.

For others who have a similar issue: Setting Opacity to Opaque AND lifting the Alpha Clip Threshold just the tiniest bit away from 0 gets me the proper cutout effect.

I also had to set "Alpha is Transparency" on the texture import to eliminate ugly edges. And that's it, works perfectly. Thanks!

 

Will Better Lit Shader work at all with the Hybrid Renderer V2 (DOTS/ECS)? I understand that DOTS/ECS is experimental and do not expect that scenario is officially supported, but curious if some features will work.

I do know that certain features of MicroSplat are not compatible, although I still get my terrain looking good enough for me, so it seems reasonable to assume something similar may be the case for this tool.

Thanks in advance for any experiences anyone can share.

 

Is there a guide somewhere on how to get this shader working with URP?

I've installed the package, all I get from the shader is purple error colour.

 

Try right-clicking on the package and do a reimport (not reimport all) on it.

 

I've just uncovered how powerful the shader is when you access its values through code. Dynamically setting the image on a flag, or the value of damage using the texture overlay and noise.

I'd like to have better documentation on the various properties and keywords. I'm reading them out of the shader right now, guessing at their function. Most are named appropriately and I got everything so far with just a few tries, but it would be really cool to have this properly documented. Ideal (for me) would be to have it in the tooltips in the editor, so that I can always check the shader and directly see what property/keyword I would have to use to code this element.

 

Thanks, that worked!

Great looking shader, particularly when paired with Beautify.

 

Hi. I upgraded my project to 2021.2.5 coming from 2020.3.22f1.

Is there a BetterLit Version for Unity 2021.2.5+ on the horizon?

 

Submitted over a month ago- Unity is taking 50+ days to review assets now, so it's completely impossible to properly service SRPs when the delay between asset submission and release is basically about the same amount of time before they release a new SRP version and break everything again. Plus the minimum version will be 2021.2.6+ since they have crashing bugs in 2020.5 and below with the shader compiler.

 

The biggest issue i have in 2021.2.5 ist that when i enable the Bakery checkbox




the checkbox always jumps to "off"



after scene save or save project.
Save scene and save project has no influence anymore.
The rendering is correct when enabled but it jumps to off automatically.

Any idea if this is already fixed in the new pending BetterLit release?

 

Will you add Surface scattering in better lit shader?My character skin looks not so good in hdrp2020.

 

https://gyazo.com/64e78171471f28974a336acebc63b5e8

I can't get the texture packer to work. These are substance materials.

 

Bake out the substances first - it doesn't have direct substance support.

 

ok that's fair. Is there plans for a way to convert standard unity materials to better lit? It is a ton of work to have to manually map maps for every material I already have in my project.

 

It's not really possible to do reliably, since all 3 render pipelines have different conventions for materials that are incompatible with each other. Both in terms of texture packing and parameters.

 

[Edit] See my post below for the solution.

I'm also struggling as I just bought the asset for the built-in workflow. As it is said the map packing is similar to the one with HDRP I thought I could ge the substance plugin to generate the HDRP maps and use them in my materials. Do you think its achievable ?
This and exporting from painter. For other texture sets I'll have to convert them manually with the utility I guess.

Also the Discord link is not working on your store page.

 

It tried to import all the HDRP Runtime + HDRP Config + RP Core. HDRP Lit shader gets compiled by replacing all references to hdrp path in shaders, but the substance plugin does not seem to be happy. That is unfortunate.

 

I finally get it to work, we had to select the LitTesselation shader. So now we can generate HDRP maps in our built-in pipeline.

 

I bought your Better Lit Shader just for displacement effects (Tesselation option). Now I am stuck, as I do not understand what it needs to get the tesselation work, as it does not show up. I also used the Crack Free Processor, but any time I add a game object form the project window (FBX/OBJ), it does not generate a second copy of it and it says "mesh has no normals".

I understand, that the tesselation is generated. But what does it need to work? I added a texture to the material, but that does not seem to be all which is necessary (except using the existing value rulers for configuration). I saw a "packed" texture in your demo scene - there it works -, but how do I generate this, or is it just a normal texture which I would need?

I could not find the needed information anywhere. Don't get what I am doing wrong...

I am using Unity 2020.3.24f1 with the included URP Version. Thanks for an answer in advance.

 

you need to use the texture packer to generate the heightmap into the Alpha channel.
Check the manual for details

 

I just get this error when I try to generate a crack free mesh https://gyazo.com/d326fe05a12b9d2a866d176259f5aff9

 

Can you show me the full stack trace from the console on that first error?

 

https://gyazo.com/d4b6579e62805c2b69a3d6321d941e46

 

You could try adding:

Code (CSharp):

1. mesh = Instantiate(mesh);

at the top of the Process function in CrackFreeProcessor.cs. I think it doesn't like that it's an asset on disk already, instead of like a mesh in a FBX file would be.

 

Thank you, this worked. I'm really enjoying this shader. I am using world-based procedural noise but having an effect I don't like https://gyazo.com/6bc06592f37e989c68fc5b5bbfd1b5eb I thought it was a fade setting but it isn't.

 

What are your noise settings?

 

https://gyazo.com/9948941838b0575dabde8e17fdbcbe74 https://gyazo.com/164d00ab555f7210c27115992dc85549

 

It is almost like the tesselation displacement for the first layer is coming through in places it shouldn't but only when viewed from certain angles.

https://gyazo.com/8340579a374f1f53afe38ce647609eb8

 

Does it happen with texture based noise? Or texture based on UV noise mode as opposed to world? Care to PM me a repro?

 

It only happens with world based noise, regardless of whether it is texture or procedural. I guess I should mention I am using 2021.2.5f1

 

Which render pipeline is this on? Although 2021.2 is not supported with that version of Better Lit I highly doubt that's the problem. My only thought is that if this is HDRP, the world position is computed relative to the camera, and perhaps some rounding error is causing the noise to give different results based on that calculation. That said, a repro case would be very useful.

 

Hi,

Better Lit 1.2.19 in Unity 2021.2.6f1

Before updating in my main Unity 2021.2.6f1 project i imported BetterLit to an empty HDRP project.

The shaders went pink after import.
After reimporting i get this. (screenshot)




Should we wait on a new better lit version.
e.g. Wind example is not working

 

SRP's are only supported on LTS releases, Unity breaks them too often to support on anything else.

 

Ok.
But please check the bakery checkbox behaviour.
Simply enable it on one shader of your example scene.
After saving scene or project it will be disabled automatically.
Same auto disable on the wind checkbox.

All other features are in a workable state.

 

This does not repro on a supported version of Unity. The whole point of not supporting beta/alpha/tech versions of Unity is not to spend all my time chasing down all the bugs they create in those versions, so yeah, not even going to look at it.

 

Im using HDRP. I'll try and send you a repro tomorrow. Really frustrating that unity is taking so long to review assets.

 

Got it and understandable.
2021 will enter LTS during first half of 2022.

Meantime.
If you or someone else has an idea what cause the checkbox flags like wind or bakery to switch of after scene or project save.
Give me a message. A dirty fix would be helpul to go on with my project port to 2021.2.x.

 

I sent you a repo. You can pan the camera around the ground object included to see the visual errors.

 

Everything is working great in 2021.2 now except the previously mentioned checkbox flags by @keeponshading

 

Hi, I am trying to use texture layers to add emission to base layer and encounter problem. Since my model only has small parts that emit light, I setup uv1 for emission to save texture space. My current setup:
Texture layer 1: Use as detail map to tile pattern
Texture layer 2: Use for emission
Layer weights: Vertex
Blend mode: Alpha blended

My problem is that I could not add emission without adding an Albedo map in the same texture layer(2). When I try to workaround and add an abledo map for that, I find that it does not respect the base layer metallic map(maybe other maps too, but metallic reflection is obvious to spot).

What I want to achieve is to add an emission map without adding an abledo map to the texture layer. Could you help me?

 

Fixed..

 

Thank you. Very fast response. I will wait for the update.

 

After update and try the texture layer 1 for emission blending, I encountered following bug:
Shader error in 'Better Lit/Lit': Fragment program 'Frag': Unrecognized sampler 'sampler_layeralbedomap_ext_1' - does not match any texture and is not a recognized inline name (should contain filter and wrap modes).
(on d3d11)

Compiling Fragment program with UNITY_PASS_FORWARDBASE DIRECTIONAL LIGHTPROBE_SH _LIGHTMAPMODE_STANDARD BAKERY_SHNONLINEAR _MASKMAP _LAYERVERTEXMASK _USELAYER_DEF_1 _LAYEREMISSION_DEF_1
Platform defines: UNITY_ENABLE_REFLECTION_BUFFERS UNITY_USE_DITHER_MASK_FOR_ALPHABLENDED_SHADOWS UNITY_PBS_USE_BRDF1 UNITY_SPECCUBE_BOX_PROJECTION UNITY_SPECCUBE_BLENDING UNITY_ENABLE_DETAIL_NORMALMAP SHADER_API_DESKTOP UNITY_LIGHT_PROBE_PROXY_VOLUME UNITY_LIGHTMAP_FULL_HDR