Is there a list of ShaderLab property types somewhere?

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I'm just getting my feet wet in ShaderLab and am a bit confused as to why I can't find a simple list of property types. Is there a reference for this out there? I'm looking for a way to specify a 4x4 transformation matrix as a property.

As a secondary question, is there any helper methods to generate a model-view-transform given a world-space-transform, near/far plane distances, aspect ratio and view angle? (or maybe even just the dimensions of a texture?).

My end goal is to simply render the scene from the perspective of an object that is not a camera... (Yes, it's a light source, and this is as much of a way for me to start learning the shader pipeline as it is me not wanting to fork out the money for pro).

To be completely explicit -- this doesn't compile:

 Properties 
 {
   _LightSource ("Light Source", float4x4)
 }

Answer 1

Best Answer

Answer by Bunny83 · Jun 02, 2012 at 06:18 PM

A quick google gave me this:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/68245-How-to-set-Matrix-as-a-Property

edit

You should also check the CG include files in the Unity folder (`%Unity_install_path%/Editor/Data/CGIncludes/`). They should help you with most tiny problems. There are already a lot of global shader parameters set by Unity, so check them out.

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Answer 2

Answer by Jessy · Jun 02, 2012 at 06:24 PM

I'm just getting my feet wet in ShaderLab and am a bit confused as to why I can't find a simple list of property types.

Me too! Google "shaderlab properties" and they're the first hit!

Matrix parameters are not exposed in the material inspector, but can be set and queried with SetMatrix and GetMatrix from scripts.

http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/ScriptReference/Material.SetMatrix.html

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Owen-Reynolds · Jun 02, 2012 at 07:00 PM 1

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There's an old rule in computers that if something is tricky to use, and most people won't need it, make it hard to find. Keeps new users form accidentally trying to most difficult stuff first. I think Unity is using that trick for shaders.

Sort of "if you can't take an hour to find all the commands, you won't have patience to write a shader."

Shadoninja Owen-Reynolds · Sep 21, 2019 at 06:42 PM 0

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That way of thinking is fundamentally misguided.

badweasel · Mar 03, 2015 at 08:58 AM 2

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But when I've been writing GLSL shaders for years, to now try to do simple things in Cg is like hours and hours of googling and pulling out my hair. And the info is scattered all over the net and that link above doesn't answer the specific thing I'm looking for. If I had enough karma I'd be down voting a lot of these "smarter than you" answers that I come across on my day long search for what should be a simple answer.

Is there a list of ShaderLab property types somewhere?

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