Control materials opacity.

Im doing a game where I need to control the opacity of a material when a object is beetween the character and the camera.

I found this shader:

Shader "Tinted Alpha Blend" { 

Properties {
    _Color ("Tint (A = Opacity)", Color) = (1,1,1,1) 
    _MainTex ("Texture (A = Transparency)", 2D) = "" 
} 

SubShader {
    Tags {Queue = Transparent}
    ZWrite On
    Blend SrcAlpha OneMinusSrcAlpha

    Pass { 
        SetTexture[_MainTex] {
            ConstantColor [_Color]
            Combine texture * constant
        } 
    } 
}

}

But then I realised that it isn’t affected by lights.

Can anyone give me a hand? (Keep in mind I don’t understand anything about shaders yet)

right click in project select create > shader
then rename it opacity
edit using mono develop
erase all copy paste below code into shader save it

go to material select shader > Custom–>opacity
i hope this is helpful.

Shader “Custom/Opacity” {
Properties {
_BumpAmt (“Distortion”, range (0,128)) = 10
_MainTex (“Tint Color (RGB)”, 2D) = “white” {}
_BumpMap (“Normalmap”, 2D) = “bump” {}
}

Category {

	// We must be transparent, so other objects are drawn before this one.
	Tags { "Queue"="Transparent" "RenderType"="Opaque" }


	SubShader {

		// This pass grabs the screen behind the object into a texture.
		// We can access the result in the next pass as _GrabTexture
		GrabPass {							
			Name "BASE"
			Tags { "LightMode" = "Always" }
 		}
 		
 		// Main pass: Take the texture grabbed above and use the bumpmap to perturb it
 		// on to the screen
		Pass {
			Name "BASE"
			Tags { "LightMode" = "Always" }
			
CGPROGRAM
#pragma vertex vert
#pragma fragment frag
#pragma fragmentoption ARB_precision_hint_fastest
#include "UnityCG.cginc"

struct appdata_t {
	float4 vertex : POSITION;
	float2 texcoord: TEXCOORD0;
};

struct v2f {
	float4 vertex : POSITION;
	float4 uvgrab : TEXCOORD0;
	float2 uvbump : TEXCOORD1;
	float2 uvmain : TEXCOORD2;
};

float _BumpAmt;
float4 _BumpMap_ST;
float4 _MainTex_ST;

v2f vert (appdata_t v)
{
	v2f o;
	o.vertex = mul(UNITY_MATRIX_MVP, v.vertex);
	#if UNITY_UV_STARTS_AT_TOP
	float scale = -1.0;
	#else
	float scale = 1.0;
	#endif
	o.uvgrab.xy = (float2(o.vertex.x, o.vertex.y*scale) + o.vertex.w) * 0.5;
	o.uvgrab.zw = o.vertex.zw;
	o.uvbump = TRANSFORM_TEX( v.texcoord, _BumpMap );
	o.uvmain = TRANSFORM_TEX( v.texcoord, _MainTex );
	return o;
}

sampler2D _GrabTexture;
float4 _GrabTexture_TexelSize;
sampler2D _BumpMap;
sampler2D _MainTex;

half4 frag( v2f i ) : COLOR
{
	// calculate perturbed coordinates
	half2 bump = UnpackNormal(tex2D( _BumpMap, i.uvbump )).rg; // we could optimize this by just reading the x & y without reconstructing the Z
	float2 offset = bump * _BumpAmt * _GrabTexture_TexelSize.xy;
	i.uvgrab.xy = offset * i.uvgrab.z + i.uvgrab.xy;
	
	half4 col = tex2Dproj( _GrabTexture, UNITY_PROJ_COORD(i.uvgrab));
	half4 tint = tex2D( _MainTex, i.uvmain );
	return col * tint;
}
ENDCG
		}
	}

	// ------------------------------------------------------------------
	// Fallback for older cards and Unity non-Pro
	
	SubShader {
		Blend DstColor Zero
		Pass {
			Name "BASE"
			SetTexture [_MainTex] {	combine texture }
		}
	}
}

}

Transparent shaders never cast or receive shadows. The only one is the cut-out shader which doesn’t have transparency, just areas which are cut out completely.

See this thread for more details:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/9909-No-shadows-visible-on-Transparency-Shaders-!!

You should also be clearer in your question. Light and shadows are two very different things in gameengines. Shadows have to be generated. They aren’t simply a result of blocking light (which would be very hard to detect).