creating material/shaders

[romain.janil]

Hi,

continuing my evaluation, and having some basic questions...

what would be the best option in Unigine to create new material/shader. Coming from Unreal or Unity (or any dcc tool like Houdini or maya) where this is pretty straightforward with amplify(U) or node graph material editor in UE),what are the options in Unigine?

- is there a graphic nodal material editor planed in the roadmap ?

- is the best way to go down UUSL path ?

- if so is it possible to modify builtin shaders (or use them as templates)

sorry if this sounds odd, I haven't got time to dig these engine's aspects so any tip on where to begin would be highly appreciated

Thanks,

[romain.janil]

keeping on, understanding this might be too vague :)

a simple use-case:

let's say I want to add a parameter to the mesh_base.basemat  (or just a mesh_base.mat ) to control uv  texture tiling for the emission state (using same UVset as diffuse ) like how this is already implemented for ao_map (ie: do a scale on UV coords but just for the emission map ). 

Do I only need to add this in the basemat (and will it work) or is it to do with vertex/fragment shader instead  (or both)?

Try to see how material/shaders are inter-related...

thanks 

[romain.janil]

...

I've created my own basemat and added what seems to be all the mechanic (based on smthing similar to the ao_map) in the xml, I get my new  parameter uv transforrm_emission showing in the gui when I change the emission state but when I change the vec4 values nothing happens, I guess nothing is passed to the shader or forgot something in the mat xml?

any advice ?

thanks a lot

 

[fox]

Hi Romain,

Unigine has an extended materials library, offering you a large variety or materials out-of-the-box, so in the majority of cases you don't even need to build a graph - just enable some states and tweak some parameters. In case if you need some specific functionality, that cannot be achieved using the  standard set of materials, you can extend the library by adding your custom material.

As for your questions

1) Is there a graphic nodal material editor planed in the roadmap ?

It's planned, but unfortunately not in 2.8

2) Is the best way to go down UUSL path?

If you need some custom material, with certain functionality which cannot be provided using Unigine's material library, then, using UUSL is a good option. In this case you'll have to write your own base material and all necessary shaders.

3) If so is it possible to modify builtin shaders (or use them as templates)

Sure, you can copy built-in shaders and modify them to provide the desired functionality
You can also check out the Article on Custom materials
and some examples:

• Creating a Custom Shader for Deferred Rendering Pass
• Creating a Custom Shader for Forward Rendering Pass
• Creating a Custom Shader for Post-Processing

Thanks!

[romain.janil]

Hi thanks Fox for your replies,

I'm trying to get a clearer picture of how things are structured, so I re-posted this particular question about uv_transform for emission state only  in the programming/graphics part of the forum, 

Thanks,

Romain

[silent]

Hi Romain,

Unfortunately, built-in shaders in Engineering Evaluation kit are hidden into the UNG archive. By purchasing the full license you will unlock them. So right now there is no easy way to check the sources, I'm afraid.

We will probably get rid of these limitations in the nearest future.

Sorry for the inconvenience caused.

[romain.janil]

Hi Silent, thanks for the clarification, I've indeed suspected this .ung file to be an archive only for the EEK, no problem, I understand.

Best,