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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Bring realism to your games by mastering post-processing effects and advanced shading techniques in Unity 2018
Key FeaturesLearn the secrets of creating AAA quality shaders without writing long algorithmsMaster shader programming through easy-to-follow examplesCreate stunning visual effects that can be used in 3D gamesBook Description
Since their introduction to Unity, shaders have been seen as notoriously difficult to understand and implement in games. Complex mathematics has always stood in the way of creating your own shaders and attaining the level of realism you crave.
Unity 2018 Shaders and Effects Cookbook changes that by giving you a recipe-based guide to creating shaders using Unity. It will show you everything you need to know about vectors, how lighting is constructed with them, and how textures are used to create complex effects without the heavy math.
This book starts by teaching you how to use shaders without writing code with the post-processing stack. Then, you’ll learn how to write shaders from scratch, build up essential lighting, and finish by creating stunning screen effects just like those in high-quality 3D and mobile games. You'll discover techniques, such as normal mapping, image-based lighting, and animating your models inside a shader. We'll explore how to use physically based rendering to treat light the way it behaves in the real world. At the end, we’ll even look at Unity 2018’s new Shader Graph system.
With this book, what seems like a dark art today will be second nature by tomorrow.
What you will learnUnderstand physically based rendering to fit the aesthetic of your gameWrite shaders from scratch in ShaderLab and HLSL/CgCombine shader programming with interactive scripts to add life to your materialsDesign efficient shaders for mobile platforms without sacrificing their realismUse state-of-the-art techniques, such as volumetric explosions and fur shadingMaster the math and algorithms behind the most used lighting modelsUnderstand how shader models have evolved and how you can create your ownWho this book is for
Unity Shaders and Effects Cookbook is for developers who want to create their first shaders in Unity 2018 or wish to take their game to a whole new level by adding professional post-processing effects. A solid understanding of Unity is required to get the most from this book.
John P. Doran is a passionate and seasoned technical game designer, software engineer, and author who is based in Redmond, Washington. For over a decade, John has built games in roles ranging from game designer to lead UI programmer. Additionally, John has taught game development in Singapore, South Korea, and the United States. To date, he has authored over 10 books pertaining to game development. You can follow him on Twitter @jodoran. Alan Zucconi is a passionate developer, author, and lecturer, recognized as one of Develop's 30 under 30. His expertise has been built over the past 10 years, working in the intersection between Creativity and Education. From 2015, he published a series of educational tutorials for other developers and Machine Learning enthusiasts
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Seitenzahl: 338
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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Unity 2018 Shaders and Effects Cookbook Third Edition
Copyright © 2018 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
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Commissioning Editor: Kunal ChaudhariAcquisition Editor: Larissa PintoContent Development Editor: Arun NadarTechnical Editor: Surabhi KulkarniCopy Editor: Safis EditingProject Coordinator: Sheejal ShahProofreader: Safis EditingIndexer: Mariammal ChettiyarGraphics: Jason MonteiroProduction Coordinator: Arvindkumar Gupta
First published: June 2013
Second edition: February 2016
Third edition: June 2018
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Contributors
About the authors
John P. Doran is a passionate and seasoned technical game designer, software engineer, and author who is based in Redmond, Washington. For over a decade, John has built games in roles ranging from game designer to lead UI programmer. Additionally, John has taught game development in Singapore, South Korea, and the United States. To date, he has authored over 10 books pertaining to game development.
Alan Zucconi is a passionate developer, author, and lecturer, recognized as one of Develop's 30 under 30. His expertise has been built over the past 10 years, working in the intersection between creativity and education. Starting in 2015, he published a series of educational tutorials for other developers and machine learning enthusiasts
About the reviewers
Andrew Hlynka is a software engineer and game developer from Windsor, Ontario, Canada. He earned his MSc degree in Computer Science in 2015 from the University of Windsor and has worked in the industry for over five years on software projects involving multimedia, interactive displays, games, mobile apps, and hybrid simulation systems. He continues his research in innovative animation techniques for games as an independent developer, publishing his projects under Dust Scratch Games.
Michael Miles is a Manufacturing Engineer working in the aerospace industry by day and is a Unity game designer, C#, JavaScript, and Python developer at all other times. With these skills, and upon discovering Unity3D and Blender, Michael began creating interactive training and production-ready instruction tools for the assembly of the aircraft his company builds.
When not in front of the screen of a computer, he likes to play games with family and friends or immerse himself in books whose genres range from fantasy to theoretical physics.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyrights and Credits
Unity 2018 Shaders and Effects Cookbook Third Edition
PacktPub.com
Why subscribe?
PacktPub.com
Contributors
About the authors
About the reviewers
Packt is searching for authors like you
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Download the example code files
Download the color images
Conventions used
Sections
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Get in touch
Reviews
Post Processing Stack
Introduction
Installing the Post Processing Stack
Getting ready
How to do it...
Getting a filmic look using grain, vignetting, and depth of field
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Mimicking real life with bloom and anti-aliasing
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Setting mood with color grading
Getting ready
How to do it...
Creating a horror game look with fog
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Creating Your First Shader
Introduction
Creating a basic Standard Shader
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Adding properties to a shader
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Using properties in a Surface Shader
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Surface Shaders and Texture Mapping
Introduction
Diffuse shading
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Accessing and modifying packed arrays
How to do it...
There's more...
See also
Adding a texture to a shader
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Scrolling textures by modifying UV values
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Creating a shader with normal mapping
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Creating a transparent material
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Creating a Holographic Shader
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Packing and blending textures
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Creating a circle around your terrain
Getting ready
How to do it...
Moving the circle
How it works...
Understanding Lighting Models
Introduction
Creating a custom diffuse lighting model
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Creating a toon shader
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Creating a Phong Specular type
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Creating a BlinnPhong Specular type
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Creating an Anisotropic Specular type
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Physically-Based Rendering
Introduction
Understanding the metallic setup
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Adding transparency to PBR
Getting ready
How to do it...
Semi-transparent materials
Fading objects
Solid geometries with holes
See also
Creating mirrors and reflective surfaces
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Baking lights in your scene
Getting ready
How to do it...
Configuring the static geometry
Configuring the light probes
Baking the lights
How it works...
See also
Vertex Functions
Introduction
Accessing a vertex color in a Surface Shader
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Animating vertices in a Surface Shader
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
Extruding your models
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Adding extrusion maps
Implementing a snow shader
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
Coloring the surface
Altering the geometry
See also
Implementing a volumetric explosion
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Fragment Shaders and Grab Passes
Introduction
Understanding Vertex and Fragment Shaders
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Input semantics
Output semantics
See also
Using the grab pass to draw behind objects
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Implementing a Glass Shader
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Implementing a Water Shader for 2D games
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
Mobile Shader Adjustment
Introduction
Techniques to make shaders more efficient
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Profiling your shaders
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Modifying our shaders for mobile
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Screen Effects with Unity Render Textures
Introduction
Setting up the screen effects script system
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Using brightness, saturation, and contrast with screen effects
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Using basic Photoshop-like Blend modes with screen effects
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Using the Overlay Blend mode with screen effects
How to do it...
How it works...
Gameplay and Screen Effects
Introduction
Creating an old movie screen effect
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Creating a night vision screen effect
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Advanced Shading Techniques
Introduction
Using Unity's built-in CgInclude files
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Making your shader world in a modular way with CgInclude
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Implementing a Fur Shader
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Implementing Heatmaps with arrays
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Shader Graph
Introduction
Creating a Shader Graph project
How to do it...
How it works...
Implementing a simple a Shader Graph
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Exposing properties to the Inspector via Shader Graph
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Implementing a glowing highlight system
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
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Preface
Unity 2018 Shaders and Effects Cookbook is your guide to becoming familiar with the creation of shaders and post-processing effects in Unity 2018. You will start your journey at the beginning, exploring the Post Processing Stack to see some of the possible ways you can use shaders to affect what you see without having to write scripts at all. Afterwards, we learn how to create shaders from scratch, starting by creating the most basic shaders and learning how the shader code is structured. This foundational knowledge will arm you with the means to progress further through each chapter, learning advanced techniques such as volumetric explosions and fur shading. We also explore the newly added Shader Graph editor to see how you can create shaders through a drag and drop interface as well! This edition of the book is written specifically for Unity 2018 and will help you to master physically-based rendering and global illumination to get as close to photorealism as possible.
By the end of each chapter, you will have gained new skills that will increase the quality of your shaders and even make your shader writing process more efficient. These chapters have been tailored so that you can jump into each section and learn a specific skill from beginner to expert. For those who are new to shader writing in Unity, you can progress through each chapter, one at a time, to build on your knowledge. Either way, you will learn the techniques that make modern games look the way they do.
Once you have completed this book, you will have a set of shaders that you can use in your Unity 3D games as well as the understanding to add to them, accomplish new effects, and address performance needs. So, let's get started!
Who this book is for
Unity Effects and Shader Cookbook is written for developers who want to create their first shaders in Unity 2018 or wish to take their game to a whole new level by adding professional post-processing effects. A solid understanding of Unity is required.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Post Processing Stack, introduces readers to the Post Processing Stack, which will allow users to tweak their game's appearance without having to write any additional scripts.
Chapter 2, Creating Your First Shader, introduces you to the world of shader coding in Unity. You will build some basic shaders and learn how to introduce tweakable properties in your shaders to make them more interactive.
Chapter 3, Surface Shaders and Texture Mapping, covers the most common and useful techniques that you can implement with Surface Shaders, including how to use textures and normal maps for your models.
Chapter 4, Understanding Lighting Models, gives you an in-depth explanation of how shaders model the behavior of light. This chapter teaches you how to create custom lighting models used to simulate special effects, such as toon shading.
Chapter 5, Physically-Based Rendering in Unity 5, shows you that physically-based rendering is the standard technology used by Unity 5 to bring realism to your games. This chapter explains how to make the most out of it by mastering transparencies, reflective surfaces, and global illumination.
Chapter 6, Vertex Functions, teaches you how shaders can be used to alter the geometry of an object. This chapter introduces vertex modifiers and uses them to bring volumetric explosions, snow shaders, and other effects to life.
Chapter 7, Fragment Shaders and Grab Passes, explains how to use grab passes to make materials that emulate the deformations generated by semi-transparent materials.
Chapter 8, Mobile Shader Adjustment, helps you optimize your shaders to get the most out of any device.
Chapter 9, Screen Effects with Unity Render Textures, shows you how to create special effects and visuals that would otherwise be impossible to achieve.
Chapter 10, Gameplay and Screen Effects, tells you how post-processing effects can be used to complement your gameplay, simulating, for instance, a night-vision effect.
Chapter 11, Advanced Shading Techniques, introduces the most advanced techniques in this book, such as fur shading and heatmap rendering.
Chapter 12, Shader Graph, explains how to set up a project to use Unity's newly added Shader Graph editor. We cover how to create a simple shader graph, how to expose properties, and how to interact with the shader graph through code using a glow highlight system.
To get the most out of this book
Readers are expected to have experience of working with Unity and some scripting experience (C# or JavaScript is fine). The book is written with Unity 2018.1.0f2, but should work with future versions of the engine with some minor tweaks.
Download the example code files
You can download the example code files for this book from your account at www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.
You can download the code files by following these steps:
Log in or register at
www.packtpub.com
.
Select the
SUPPORT
tab.
Click on
Code Downloads & Errata
.
Enter the name of the book in the
Search
box and follow the onscreen instructions.
Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder using the latest version of:
WinRAR/7-Zip for Windows
Zipeg/iZip/UnRarX for Mac
7-Zip/PeaZip for Linux
The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Unity-2018-Shaders-and-Effects-Cookbook-Third-Edition. In case there's an update to the code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.
We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!
Download the color images
We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/Unity2018ShadersandEffectsCookbookThirdEdition_ColorImages.pdf.
Sections
In this book, you will find several headings that appear frequently (Getting ready, How to do it..., How it works..., There's more..., and See also).
To give clear instructions on how to complete a recipe, use these sections as follows:
Getting ready
This section tells you what to expect in the recipe and describes how to set up any software or any preliminary settings required for the recipe.
How to do it…
This section contains the steps required to follow the recipe.
How it works…
This section usually consists of a detailed explanation of what happened in the previous section.
There's more…
This section consists of additional information about the recipe in order to make you more knowledgeable about the recipe.
See also
This section provides helpful links to other useful information for the recipe.
Get in touch
Feedback from our readers is always welcome.
General feedback: Email [email protected] and mention the book title in the subject of your message. If you have questions about any aspect of this book, please email us at [email protected].
Errata: Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you have found a mistake in this book, we would be grateful if you would report this to us. Please visit www.packtpub.com/submit-errata, selecting your book, clicking on the Errata Submission Form link, and entering the details.
Piracy: If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the internet, we would be grateful if you would provide us with the location address or website name. Please contact us at [email protected] with a link to the material.
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Reviews
Please leave a review. Once you have read and used this book, why not leave a review on the site that you purchased it from? Potential readers can then see and use your unbiased opinion to make purchase decisions, we at Packt can understand what you think about our products, and our authors can see your feedback on their book. Thank you!
For more information about Packt, please visit packtpub.com.
Post Processing Stack
In this chapter, you will learn about the following recipes:
Installing the Post Processing Stack
Getting a filmic look using grain, vignetting, and anti-aliasing
Mimicking real life with bloom and anti-aliasing
Setting the mood with color grading
Creating a horror game look with fog
Introduction
It's great to write your own shaders and effects so that you can fine-tune your project to look just the way that you want, and this is what we will be spending the majority of the book looking into. However, it's also good to point out that Unity already comes with some prebuilt ways to get some of the more common effects that users like to have through the use of the Post Processing Stack.
For those who just want to get something up and running, the Post Processing Stack can be an excellent way for you to tweak the appearance of your game without having to write any additional code. Using the Post Processing Stack can also be useful in showing you just what shaders can do and how they can improve your game projects as, behind the scenes, the Post Processing Stack is itself a shader that is applied to the screen, aptly called a screen shader.
Installing the Post Processing Stack
Before we can use the Post Processing Stack, we must first get it from the newly introduced Package Manager. A Unity package is a single file that contains various assets that can be used in Unity in a similar manner to a .zip file. Previously, Unity used the Asset Store to share these files with users, but as time has gone on, the Package Manager has been added to give users an easy way to get free content from Unity. We will actually be using the Package Manager again in Chapter 12, Shader Graph, but right now we will be using it for the Post-Processing package that it contains.
Getting ready
To get started with this recipe, you will need to have Unity running and have created a new project. This chapter also requires you to have an environment to work from. The code files provided with this book will contain a basic scene and content to create the scene Unity's Standard Assets.
Open the Chapter 1 | Starting Point scene inside of the Asset | Chapter 01 | Scenes folder from the Project browser. If all goes well, you should see something like this from the Game tab:
This is a simple environment that will allow us to easily see how changes made in post-processing effects can modify how things are drawn on the screen.
How to do it...
To begin:
Open up the
Package
Manager
by going to
Window
|
Package Manager
(or by pressing
Ctrl + 9
):
From the list view, click on the
All
button to display a list of all of the possible packages that are there. Once the list populates with all of the choices, select the
Post-processing
option:
From there, at the top right of the menu, click on the
Install 2.0.7-preview
button. You may need to wait for a while for it to complete downloading the content. Once it's completed, you should be brought back to the
In
Project
selection and now you'll see
Post-processing
added to the list:
Close out of the
Packages
tab and go back to the
Scene
window to see the level. Then, from the
Hierarchy
window, we want to select the object that has our
Camera
component attached to it, as the Post Processing Stack needs to know which screen we want to modify. If you are using your own project, you may select the
MainCamera
object that comes with the default Unity scene, but the example project that is being used has the
Camera
located as a child of the
FPSController
object. To select it, click on the arrow next to the name to extend the object's children and then select the
FirstPersonCharacter
object:
This object has the Camera component on it, which is in charge of drawing what it sees to the Game tab when the game starts.
With the object selected and our
Camera
component attached to it,
next
we need to add the
Post-processing Behavior
component to the object by going into
Component
|
Rendering
|
Post-process Layer
:
Once added, from the
Inspector
tab, scroll down to the
Post Process Layer
(Script)
component and, under
Layer
, change the dropdown to
PostProcessing
.
This tells the component which objects we want to draw on the screen. When setting this, an object must have its
Layer
property set to
PostProcessing
in order to be seen.
To create a
Post Process Volume
, go to the menu and select
GameObject
|
3D Object
|
Post Process Volume
. From there, go to the
Inspector
tab and change the
Layer
property to
PostProcessing
. Finally, to make it easier to work with, change the
Position
to
0
,
0
,
0
and under the
Post Process Volume
component, check the
Is Global
property:
Notice that there is a Profile property to the volume. This property will contain information about how we wish to modify the screen. By checking Is Global, we are saying that this information should always be drawn on an object. By unchecking it, the effects will only be visible from a certain distance from where the volume is placed. Depending on the game, this could allow you to drastically modify how the game appears in certain areas, but we care only about getting the visual effect at this point.
Getting a filmic look using grain, vignetting, and depth of field
Now that we have the Post Processing Stack installed, we can create our first Post-processing Volume. The new Post Processing Stack relies on using volumes that describe how things should be drawn, either globally or within a certain area.
One of the most common appearances people like projects to have is that of a film. This is used quite frequently in titles such as the Uncharted series and Grand Theft Auto V. It's also used quite effectively in the Left 4 Dead series, as its creator are trying to emulate the B-movie zombie films that the games are based on.
Getting ready
Make sure you have completed the Installing the Post Processing Stack recipe before starting this one.
How to do it...
We first create a new
Post Processing Profile
by right-clicking within the
Assets
|
Chapter 1
folder in the
Project
window and then selecting
Create
|
Post Processing Profile
. Once selected, it will allow us to rename the item. Go ahead and set the name to
FilmicProfile
:
Once created, you should notice that, when selected, the
Inspector
window will now contain a button that says
Add effect...
(as you can see in the preceding image), which will allow us to augment what is normally drawn on the screen.
From the
Hierarchy
tab, select the
Post-process Volume
object again and from the
Inspector
tab go to the
Post Process Volume
component and assign the
Profile
property to the
FilmicProflie
we just created:
Notice that, once the Profile has been set, the Add effect... button shows up here as well. We can use this at either place and the changes will be saved in the file.
To get started, click on the
Add effect...
button and select the
Unity
|
Grain
option. By default, you'll only see the
Grain
option with a check, so click on the arrow to expand its contents:
By default, you'll see that everything is greyed out. In order to have it affect anything, you have to click on the checkbox on the left-hand side. You can quickly turn them all on or off by pressing the All or None buttons on the screen.
In our case, check the
Intensity
option and set it to
0.2
. Then, check the
Size
property and set it to
0.3
. Afterward, switch to the
Game
tab to see a representation of what our tweaks have done:
You will notice that the screen has become much fuzzier than before. Decrease the
Intensity
to
0.2
, the
Size
to
0.3
, and uncheck the
Colored
option.
The next property we want to tweak is the
Vignette
property. Note the blackened edges around the screen. Click on
Add effect...
and select
Unity
|
Vignette
. Open up the properties and change the
Intensity
to
0.5
and the
Smoothness
to
0.35
:
Next, select
Add effect...
again and, this time, select
Unity
|
Depth of Field
. Check the
Depth of Field
option. It may be difficult to see a change right off the bat, but change the
Focus Distance
to
6
and
Focal Length
to
80
and you should notice the grass in front of the background and the mountain in the distance are now blurred:
Now, if we go into the game itself, you should see our filmic look in action:
And with that, we now have a scene that looks much more like a film than what we had to begin with!
How it works...
Each time we add an effect to a Post-processing Volume, we are overriding what would normally be put onto the screen.
If you've been to a movie theater that still uses film, you may have noticed how there were little specks in the filmstock while the film was playing. The grain effect simulates this film grain, causing the effect to become more pronounced the more the movie is played. This is often used in horror games to obscure the player's vision.
In the film world, vignetting can be an unintended effect of using the wrong type of lens for the type of shot you are trying to achieve or the aspect ratio that you are shooting for. In game development, we typically use vignetting for dramatic effect or to have players focus on the center of the screen by darkening and/or desaturating the edges of the screen compared to the center.
The depth of field setting basically determines what is blurry and what isn't. The idea is to have items of importance in focus while items in the background are not.
Mimicking real life with bloom and anti-aliasing
The bloom optical effect aims to mimic the imaging effects of real-world cameras, where things in areas with lights will glow along the edges, thus overwhelming the camera. The bloom effect is very distinctive and you've likely seen it employed in areas in a game that are magical or heaven-like.
Getting ready
Make sure you have completed the Installing the Post Processing Stack recipe before starting this one.
How to do it...
We first create a new
Post Processing Profile
by right-clicking within the
Assets
folder in the
Project
window and then selecting
Create
|
Post Processing Profile
. Once selected, it will allow us to rename the item. Go ahead and set the name to
BloomProfile
.
Select the
Post-process volume
object and, f
rom the
Inspector
window, go to the
Post Processing Volume
component and
assign the
Profile
property
t
o the
BloomProflie
we just created.
Afterward, select the
Game
tab, if it hasn't been selected already to see the results of the changes we are about to make in the following steps.
Select the
Add effect...
button and select
Unity
|
Bloom
. Once the effect has been added to the
Overrides
section of the
Post Processing Volume
component, select the arrow to open its properties. Check the
Intensity
property and set it to
3
. Afterward, check and set the
Threshold
to
0.75
, the
Soft Knee
to
0.1
, and the
Radius
to
3
:
Next, select the object with the
Post Process Layer
component attached to it (in the example, it is the
FPSController
|
FirstPersonCharacter
object) and, from the
Inspector
tab, scroll down to the
Post Process Layer
script. From there, change the
Anti-aliasing
property dropdown to
Fast Approximate Anti-aliasing
:
Afterward, save your scene and hit the Play button to check out your project:
How it works...
As mentioned before, bloom will make bright things even brighter while adding a glow to lighter areas. In this recipe, you may notice that the path is much lighter than it was previously. This can be used in order to ensure that players will follow the path to get to the next section of gameplay.
Anti-aliasing attempts to reduce the appearance of aliasing, which is the effect of lines appearing jagged on the screen. This is typically due to the fact that the display the player is using to play the game doesn't have a high enough resolution to be displayed properly. Anti-aliasing will combine colors with nearby lines in order to remove their prominence, at the cost of the game appearing blurry.
Setting mood with color grading
One of the best ways to easily change the mood of a scene is by changing the colors a scene uses. One of the best examples of this is in the Matrix series of films, where the real world is always blue-tinted, while the computer-generated world of the Matrix is always tinted green. We can emulate this in our games through the use of color grading.
Getting ready
Make sure you have completed the Installing the Post Processing Stack recipe before starting this one.
How to do it...
We first create a new
Post Processing Profile
by right-clicking within the
Assets
folder in the
Project
window and then selecting
Create
|
Post Processing Profile
. Once selected, it will allow us to rename the item. Go ahead and set it to
ColorProfile
.
Select the
Post-process volume
object and, f
rom the
Inspector
window, go to the
Post Processing Volume
component and
assign the
Profile
property to the
ColorProflie
we just created.
Afterward, select the
Game
tab, if it hasn't been selected already, to see the results of the changes to be made.
Select the
Add effect...
button and select
Unity
|
Color Grading
.
Check the
Mode
property and set it to
Low Definition Range
(LDR). From there, you'll see a number of properties that can be used to adjust the colors on the screen in a similar manner to how Photoshop's hue/saturation menu works. Check the
Temperature
property and set it to
30
. Afterward, set the
Hue Shift
property to
-20
and the
Saturation
to
15
:
After making the changes, dive into the game to see what it looks like when playing:
Notice how the previously very green environment is now much warmer and more yellow than before.
Creating a horror game look with fog
One of the types of games that best utilize the features of the Post Processing Stack is the horror genre. Using things such as depth of field to hide scary objects, as well as static to make the screen more menacing, can really help set your game firmly in the right place and provide the mood you are going for.
Getting ready
Make sure you have completed the Installing the Post Processing Stack recipe before starting this one.
How to do it...
We first create a new Post Processing Profile by right-clicking within the
Assets
folder in the
Project
window and then selecting
Create
|
Post Processing Profile
. Once selected, it will allow us to rename the item. Go ahead and set the name to
HorrorProfile
.
Select the
Post-process volume
object and, f
rom the
Inspector
window, go to the
Post Processing Volume
component and
assign the
Profile
property to the
HorrorProflie
