Tutorial: Shader Writing Master Series: Fundamentals to Advanced

Hi guys!
I'm Alex Telford from Unity Cookie, part of the CG Cookie education network and I'm really excited to announce our new training series: The Noob to Pro shader writing master series for unity 4.

This is a three series series focusing on taking you from no shader writing experience and minimal coding experience (If you know what a variable and a function is, you will be fine) to someone who can create fully customized shaders from scratch

1. Fundamentals of shader writing
- Here we learn what a shader is and how to create them
- We cover how to create a fully textured, normal mapped shader with a full specular rim lit lighting model from scratch
- 9 lessons including a tutorial on optimization
- Online Video, (Downloadable video, Presentation, written version and shaders in source files)
2. Expanding your skillset
- The intermediate series focuses on adding more techniques to your skillset
- We cover techniques like DoF, depth fog and toon shading in unity free
-9 lessons (TBC)
- Online Video, (Downloadable video, written version and shaders in source files)
3. Advanced Techniques
- A special focus on complex techniques
- We cover techniques such as scripted shaders, depth based translucency and image effects.
- course structure TBC
- Online Video, (Downloadable video, written version and shaders in source files)

The first series: "Fundamentals of shader writing" is now online and we decided we would release this one for free!
http://cgcookie.com/unity/cgc-series/noob-to-pro-shader-writing-for-unity-4-beginner/

I'm really excited about this series, and I hope you are as well.
I hope you enjoy the series and if we get enough interest we will put more time into releasing the intermediate and advanced series sooner (So share this around if you can't wait )

Feel free to leave comments here or on the series page and I will do my best to answer them all.
-Alex Telford

 

It seems like it could be awesome, but so far it's unlistenable; the beginnings of words are cut off, and not even at zero crossings, so it's pretty painful. Is there any way this can be fixed, or was it an auotmatic process, designed to get rid of silence, that went wrong, and no salvage can be performed? Or, does this end? I only watched into the second video, but I did it on two computers.

 

Will be great to see more stuff.
Thanks for keeping it free for all.

rahuxx

 

I could see myself paying for this after more information is added. Things like normal maps and basic lighting equations isn't enough. Some of the other techniques made me interested. When more stages are added it would be nice for a tutorial series on shading to work within the unity framework as that is the most confusing part when you know shaders but come to unity. If the advanced goes into volume rendering,multi-pass techniques, screen space techniques with the depth buffer I will most definitely be a customer.

 

I am hopefully not going to sound rude, but your "Kiwi accent" as one user on Vimeo called it, is making it a little hard for me to fully understand what you're saying.
Maybe it's just me and I've got to adopt to as many English accents as possible to overcome such issues ... definitely challenging if you're not a native speaker. I would certainly have trouble listening to me speaking English
Apart from that this tutorial series sounds promising and I'll see what spare time I can spend to tune in.

 

Hey Guys
Jessy:
I did trim a lot of 'dead air' out of the videos, I listened through it a couple of times but didn't hear too many cut-offs, I will see what I can do though.
Perhaps try one of the later videos and see if there is still cut-offs after I got a bit more experienced with editing, though it could be the way I talk, us new zealanders tend to start off at full volume rather than easing into words.
There is also a text version available for people having trouble with the videos.
Rahuxx:
You are very welcome
ChaseRLewis73003:
Thanks This series was aimed just at the fundamentals, we will be covering things such as DoF, toon shading, vertex animation in the next series (all in unity free), and screen space sub surface scattering, tessellation, image effects, multiple passes etc in the advanced series after that, in all there will be 3 series at 9 parts each.
Marco Sperling:
Yeah I get a lot of that, that is why I prepared in advance and created a written version of all the lessons in the source files. Unfortunately us Kiwis have quite a strong accent, similar to Australian but not as soft I think. Make sure you grab the written versions to help you follow along and I shall try to work on my accent for the future series
-Alex Telford

 

There's a bug I cant figure out how to get rid of.
I've just finished the video about Point Lights support and when I test it, Unity "clips" the light effect on the object. It also happens on the Game view.


Also, are you going to teach us how to apply drop shadows? I think that's just what the tutorials are missing to be a fully functional vertex/fragment shader series.

 

(bookmarked)

 

Hey Alex,
when will the Advanced Tutorials be ready? Can't wait to see them.

 

I believe, since Unity has been frequently changing, it's gonna take a long time before Alex can finish the advanced series properly. It must be hard to keep up with the changes and deliver an up to date tutorial. But still, can't wait to see it! =)

 

6 years later....

 

lol, 6 sounds like an overly alternative fact

 

#facepalm, "alternative facts" MSNBC much?

maybe I just read dates wrong?

 

just kidding - would be nice to know about the rest of the shader tutorials though

 

I got super excited finding this thread just to see it went no where. Maybe he'll get around to it soon

 

Me too...