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4
Question by Reavenk · Dec 06, 2011 at 04:40 PM · surface shader

Camera forward vector in shader

Is there an easy way to get the camera's forward vector in a surface shader (the near clip plane's normal)? Perhaps a built-in shader constant or input struct variable? I want somet$$anonymous$$ng like the "viewDir" variable from here, but just the forward vector, not a ray per-pixel.

I'm trying to do some calculations off pixel distances projected onto the near clipping plane's normal instead of the distance from the camera position.

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avatar image Jessy · Dec 06, 2011 at 06:12 PM 0
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avatar image Reavenk · Dec 06, 2011 at 07:02 PM 0
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avatar image Jessy · Dec 06, 2011 at 07:51 PM 3
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avatar image Reavenk · Dec 06, 2011 at 10:15 PM 2
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avatar image nikomikulicic · May 12, 2015 at 04:43 PM 0
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Answer by moosefetcher · Sep 22, 2016 at 10:07 AM

I know it's 5 years later on from the original question, but the solution mentioned in the comments above worked for me too. I put t$$anonymous$$s in my frag function and it works perfectly:

 float3 viewDir = UNITY_MATRIX_IT_MV[2].xyz;
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Answer by rcabot · May 18, 2018 at 02:21 PM

For those of you still attempting to use moosefetcher's answer, I tried t$$anonymous$$s in my vertex shader and it messed with my lighting for some reason.

In the end I used float3 forward = mul((float3x3)unity_CameraToWorld, float3(0,0,1)); w$$anonymous$$ch worked fine.

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avatar image hdb0 · Jan 08, 2021 at 09:35 PM 0
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avatar image spaceplunge · May 16, 2022 at 09:18 AM 0
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avatar image tomekkie2 · 3 days ago 0
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Is it the same as unity_CameraWorldClipPlanes[5].xyz? or - unity_CameraWorldClipPlanes[4].xyz?

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