Unity 2021 Shaders and Effects Cookbook

Overcome the challenges and complexities involved in creating your own shaders with high-level realism with practical solutions, best practices, and the latest features of Unity 2021

Key Features

• Discover practical recipes for mastering post-processing effects and advanced shading techniques
• Learn the secrets of creating AAA quality shaders without writing long algorithms
• Create visually stunning effects for your games using Unity's VFX Graph

Book Description

Shaders are key to developing rich visuals for game projects. However, creating shaders for your games can be notoriously challenging due to various factors, such as complex mathematics, that stand in the way of attaining the level of realism you'd like crave for your shaders. The Unity 2021 Shaders and Effects Cookbook changes that by giving you a recipe-based guide to creating shaders using Unity.

This fourth edition is updated and enhanced using Unity 2021 features and tools covering Unity's new way of creating particle effects with the VFX Graph. You'll learn to use VFX Graph for advanced shaders development. The book also contains updated recipes for using Shader Graph to create 2D and 3D elements. You'll find everything you need to know about vectors, how they're used to construct lighting, and how textures create complex effects without the heavy math. You'll also understand how to utilize the visual-based Shader Graph to create shaders without the use of code.

By the end of this Unity book, you'll have developed a set of shaders that you can use in your Unity 3D games and have gained a solid understanding of how to add to them, accomplish new effects, and address performance needs for your Unity game development projects. So, let's get started!

What you will learn

• Understand physically based rendering to fit the aesthetic of your game
• Create eye-catching effects for your games by testing the limits of what shaders can do
• Apply advanced shaders techniques for your AAA-scale games
• Use Shader Graph to create 2D and 3D elements for your games without writing code
• Master the math and algorithms behind the most used lighting models
• Get to grips with the post-processing stack to tweak the appearance of your game effectively

Who This Book Is For

This book is for game developers who want to start creating their first shaders in Unity 2021 and are looking to take their game to a whole new level by adding professional post-processing effects. The book assumes intermediate-level knowledge of Unity.