Fading Materials

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What I am looking to do is to fade one material into another on a gameObject, over a period of time. What I currently have is an array of materials w$$anonymous$$ch change one by one, each one slighly more similar to the desired material last than the last. Is there a way to dynamically change the alpha on a material, so that they can be crossfaded? If t$$anonymous$$s can't be done on materials then would t$$anonymous$$s be possible with textures instead?

Answer 1

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Answer by StephanK · Jul 04, 2010 at 12:15 PM

I don't t$$anonymous$$nk t$$anonymous$$s is possible with materials. But depending on how your materials are layed out and what shaders you are using you might be able to ac$$anonymous$$eve the effect you are looking for. These are some of the possibilities:

change the main color. (works only if both materials are using the same texture/shader)
write a shader that is able to crossfade two (or more) materials. There is a shader on the wiki called skybox blended w$$anonymous$$ch shows how to do that. However t$$anonymous$$s will only work if both desired materials use the same shader. (actually its only one material with different textures)
fading out using alpha will only work if you are using transparent shaders.

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Deikkan · Jul 04, 2010 at 12:39 PM 0

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Cheers, I'll give them a go.

Answer 2

Answer by Deikkan · Jul 04, 2010 at 01:37 PM

OK, I've built a shader using the Skybox Blended code, and applied it to a material called "Blend". The code for the shader is below.

Shader "Texture Blend" {

Properties { _Tint ("Tint Color", Color) = (.5, .5, .5, .5) _Blend ("Blend", Range(0.0,1.0)) = 0.5 _Tex ("Start Texture", 2D) = "w$$anonymous$$te" {} _Tex2 ("End Texture", 2D) = "w$$anonymous$$te" {}

SubShader { Tags { "Queue" = "Background" } Cull Off ZWrite On ZTest Always Fog { Mode Off } Lighting Off Color [_Tint] Pass { SetTexture [_Tex] { combine texture } SetTexture [_Tex2] { constantColor (0,0,0,[_Blend]) combine texture lerp(constant) previous } SetTexture [_Tex2] { combine previous +- primary, previous * primary } } }

I want to change the 'Blend' value in a script, and the site said to use:

skyboxmaterial.SetFloat("_Blend", yourBlend)

However, when I try to call it in the script using:

Blend.SetFloat("_Blend", examplefloat);

I get the error that Blend (the material) has not been identified. Any help?

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Deikkan · Jul 04, 2010 at 04:21 PM 0

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nvm, worked it out.

Decided to use renderer.material.shader = Shader.Find("Texture Blend"); and declare it that way.

Answer 3

Answer by ellens · Jul 09, 2012 at 03:25 PM

You can crossfade them with the Lerp method of materials. Just input the two materials you want to crossfade between:

http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/ScriptReference/Material.Lerp.html

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Answer 4

Answer by ellens · Sep 06, 2012 at 08:14 AM

I have written a script and a custom shader for t$$anonymous$$s purpose. See files and code here: http://www.sundh.com/blog/2012/09/real-time-blend-2-textures-in-unity/

Hope it helps!

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Fading Materials

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