Browsed by
Category: Shaders

Analyzing telemetry

Analyzing telemetry

I previously covered how to connect your Unity client to a Google Drive spreadsheet and upload your telemetry data. Which is cool but not very useful if we can’t retrieve that data. One solution is to go into your Drive and download the spreadsheet manually, but that’s not really awesome. What we want is a client which not only downloads the data directly, but formats it and does cool telemetry-analytical-things to it! Downloading the data: Luckily, accessing the data stored…

Read More Read More

Vertex and fragment shaders

Vertex and fragment shaders

Through my previous articles on shaders, I have worked exclusively with Surface functions to handle the shader logic. However, this function only handles certain aspects of rendering. What happens when you run your compiler, is that the surface function gets turned into what are called Vertex– and “per-pixel (or Fragment)”-functions. Compiling is basically like having a whole burger, then dropping it on the ground, witnessing its transformation into buns and patties before your very eyes. But what does vertex and…

Read More Read More

Shaders and lighting models

Shaders and lighting models

As I covered in the previous article about shader anatomy, there are a few different lighting models to choose from, if you are not creating your own. Depending on the model, you will have access to different properties in your surface function. But what exactly is a lighting model, and how can we use them for cool stuff? Because that’s really what we’re here for, all the cool beans. A lighting model is really just an algorithm, which looks at…

Read More Read More

Introduction to shaders

Introduction to shaders

In a previous article, I talked about cel shaders and how to make your own. In this article I will walk you through the basics for shaders in general, for those of you who want a deeper understanding and explore the subject on your own. However, the focus of the article will be on understanding shaders, more so than writing them ourselves. The writing part will be covered in later articles. Anatomy: The best place to start is with the…

Read More Read More

Cel shading basics

Cel shading basics

In this article I will go through the shader I wrote for our Ecosystem student project, to implement cel shading. If you are unfamiliar with the concept, this rendering method gives a black outline to everything, giving it a cartoony look. Before I go any further, you should be aware that I assume baseline familiarity with technical rendering terms and shader basics. If you want to explore shader programming from the complete basics, I highly recommend giving this course a…

Read More Read More