How to access Emission Color of a Material in Script?

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Hi, so I need a way to change the color of an Object over texture. So I guess the emission light color should be what I want. But I simply call it in Unity by using Material.SetColor("_Emission", newColor) as described in UnityDoc:

http://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Material.SetColor.html

But it seems not working. Am I right to use dat function? BTW, it could be changed in Inspector.

Answer 1

Answer by Unshackled · Dec 10, 2017 at 12:38 AM

I changed the emission color with t$$anonymous$$s code:

 Material mymat = GetComponent<Renderer>().material;
         mymat.SetColor("_EmissionColor", Color.red);

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Answer 2

Answer by magique · Oct 28, 2015 at 12:52 PM

@millanow, You need to call the following before setting the _EmissionColor.

gameObject.GetComponent).material.EnableKeyword("_EMISSION");

I had the same issue and found t$$anonymous$$s solution elsewhere.

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Answer 3

Answer by terresquall · Feb 10, 2020 at 05:18 AM

You have to make sure that the Emission property on the material is enabled, w$$anonymous$$ch you can do using: material.EnableKeyword("_EMISSION");. You will also have to use DynamicGI.UpdateEnvironment(); if you want the emission lighting to affect the environment. Take a look at t$$anonymous$$s article. It explains all the little details you have to take care of to get emission lighting to work properly: https://blog.terresquall.com/2020/01/getting-your-emission-maps-to-work-in-unity/

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Answer 4

Answer by CHPedersen · Aug 02, 2015 at 11:49 AM

Calling Material.SetColor("_Emission", newColor) only has an effect if the shader w$$anonymous$$ch is used to render the object actually has a variable called _Emission defined in it. T$$anonymous$$s is the case for Vertex Lit shaders, as the docs also describe. Are you using a vertex lit shader?

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milanow · Aug 02, 2015 at 05:31 PM 0

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No, actually I only use default Standard shader. Does it have a variable defining emission light?

CHPedersen · Aug 02, 2015 at 05:35 PM 0

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Nope. :) Select the vertex lit shader like the docs say, and you'll see the Emissive color in the inspector:

Emissive color

No emissive color in the shader = no reaction when setting the color using SetColor.

emission.png (14.0 kB)

milanow · Aug 03, 2015 at 04:05 AM 0

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@CHPedersen it works but not the way I want...So if I have a texture contains black, I actually want a red color could be kinds up covering that black. In VertexLit shader, the red is still covered by black. If I use standard shader and change Emission in the inspector, the Emission color could do that.

So I guess if I could check standard shader file and figure out which variable represents "Emission" in the inspector. I could still use standard shader. But obviously there is no ways to check out source code in Unity.......

CHPedersen · Aug 03, 2015 at 12:25 PM 0

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Sure there is. :) Just not from within the editor itself. You can view the source code for the built-in shaders if you download them from this site. Click the link under "Additional downloads" and select built in shaders.

After you get them, you'll have to study the standard diffuse shader and standard vertexlit shader a bit, of course, to figure out how to add the emissive functionality to the diffuse one. It won't be terribly difficult, but you have to be at least comfortable with shader code to do so.

milanow · Aug 04, 2015 at 07:47 AM 0

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@CHPederson Haha you know what? Standard shader does have a definition for Emission called "_EmissionColor". But the weird thing is when I run it in the Editor, emission color was still black even though I called SetColor("_EmissionColor". Color.red) func. as below,

alt text

However when I unfolded the material window (game is on), it change to red immediately....OMG alt text

Have you ever met this before?

capture1.png (5.8 kB)

capture2.png (20.5 kB)

moritzcerst milanow · Dec 18, 2020 at 10:56 PM 0

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I had the same bug. When i changed the Global Illumination, everything worked perfectly.

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Answer 5

Answer by agenda · Aug 13, 2017 at 12:40 PM

t$$anonymous$$s is because the shader wasnt in the scene at the start containing a entry called emission! if u apply and enable emission through script without having a copy with those features in the scene from start it fails!

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How to access Emission Color of a Material in Script?

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