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Question by sgoodrow · May 17, 2013 at 09:36 PM · camerashadermaterialfogshader-replacement

Setting up a simple depth-based Shader Replacement material?

I have been trying to get a handle on the concept of Shader Replacement and am having a hard time getting things to work. The first goal is simply to render the difference in depth between a mesh's front faces and back faces; this is my first step toward volume fog.

Here is the code for the script which is attached to the main camera:

 using UnityEngine;
 using System.Collections;
 
 [ExecuteInEditMode]
 [RequireComponent(typeof(Camera))]
 public class VolumeFogRenderer : MonoBehaviour
 {
     public Shader m_BackFaceDepthsShader;
     public Shader m_FrntFaceDepthsShader;
     public Material m_VolumeFogMaterial;
     
     private GameObject _shaderReplacementCamera;
     
     void OnPreRender()
     {
         if (!enabled || !gameObject.activeSelf)
         {
             return;
         }
         
         if (!_shaderReplacementCamera)
         {
             _shaderReplacementCamera = new GameObject("CameraVolumeFog");
             _shaderReplacementCamera.hideFlags = HideFlags.HideAndDontSave;
             _shaderReplacementCamera.AddComponent<Camera>();
             _shaderReplacementCamera.camera.enabled = false;            
         }
         
         Camera cam = _shaderReplacementCamera.camera;
         cam.CopyFrom(camera);
         cam.backgroundColor = new Color(0, 0, 0, 0);
         cam.clearFlags = CameraClearFlags.SolidColor;
         
         RenderTexture backFaceDepthsRT = RenderTexture.GetTemporary(Screen.width, Screen.height, 16);        
         cam.targetTexture = backFaceDepthsRT;
         cam.RenderWithShader(m_BackFaceDepthsShader, "Fog");
         
         RenderTexture frntFaceDepthsRT = RenderTexture.GetTemporary(Screen.width, Screen.height, 16);
         cam.targetTexture = frntFaceDepthsRT;
         cam.RenderWithShader(m_FrntFaceDepthsShader, "Fog");
         
         m_VolumeFogMaterial.SetTexture("_BackFaceDepths", backFaceDepthsRT);
         m_VolumeFogMaterial.SetTexture("_FrntFaceDepths", frntFaceDepthsRT);
                 
         RenderTexture.ReleaseTemporary(backFaceDepthsRT);
         RenderTexture.ReleaseTemporary(frntFaceDepthsRT);
     }
 
     void OnDisable()
     {        
         if (_shaderReplacementCamera != null)
         {
             DestroyImmediate(_shaderReplacementCamera);
         }
     }
 }

This script requires 3 objects to be set up in the inspector: a back face depth shader, front face depth shader, and a composite material which renders the difference between the two RenderTextures produced from the first two shaders:

Here is the shader for the composite material:

 Shader "Custom/VolumeFog"
 {
     Properties
     {        
         _MainTex ("Base (RGB) Trans (A)", 2D) = "" {}
         _BackFaceDepths ("Back Face Depths", 2D) = "" {}
         _FrntFaceDepths ("Front Face Depths", 2D) = "" {}
 
     }
     
     SubShader
     {
         Tags
         {
             "Queue" = "Transparent-1"
             "RenderType" = "Fog"
             "IgnoreProjector" = "True"
         }
         
         Lighting Off
         ZWrite Off
         Fog { Mode Off }
         LOD 200
         
         CGPROGRAM
         #pragma surface surf Lambert alpha
                 
         sampler2D _MainTex;
         sampler2D _BackFaceDepths;
         sampler2D _FrntFaceDepths;
         
         struct Input
         {
             float2 uv_MainTex;
         };
         
         void surf (Input IN, inout SurfaceOutput o)
         {
             fixed4 bg = tex2D(_MainTex, IN.uv_MainTex);
             fixed4 b = tex2D(_BackFaceDepths, IN.uv_MainTex);
             fixed4 f = tex2D(_FrntFaceDepths, IN.uv_MainTex);
             
             fixed4 d = clamp(b - f, 0, 1);
             
             o.Albedo = d.rgb;
             o.Alpha = d.a;
         }
         
         ENDCG
     }
     
     FallBack Off
 }

And finally the two shaders used for replacement shading. First the back face depths:

 Shader "Custom/Back Face Depths"
 {
     SubShader
     {
         Tags
         {
             "RenderType" = "Fog"
         }
 
         Pass
         {
             Fog { Mode Off }
             Lighting Off
             Cull Front
             
             CGPROGRAM
             #pragma target 3.0
             #pragma vertex vert
             #pragma fragment frag
             #include "UnityCG.cginc"
             
             struct v2f
             {
                 float4 pos : POSITION;
                 float2 depth : TEXCOORD0;
             };
             
             v2f vert( appdata_base v )
             {
                 v2f o;
                 o.pos = mul(UNITY_MATRIX_MVP, v.vertex);
                 COMPUTE_EYEDEPTH(o.depth);
                 
                 return o;
             }
             
             float4 frag(v2f i) : COLOR
             {
                 half4 d = i.depth.x / 20;
                 
                 half4 c;
                 c.r = d;
                 c.g = d;
                 c.b = d;
                 c.a = d;
                 
                 return c;
             }
             
             ENDCG
         }
     }
 }

And now the front face depths:

 Shader "Custom/Front Face Depths"
 {
     SubShader
     {
         Tags
         {
             "RenderType" = "Fog"
         }
         
         Pass
         {
             Fog { Mode Off }
             Lighting Off
             Cull Back
             
             CGPROGRAM
             #pragma target 3.0
             #pragma vertex vert
             #pragma fragment frag
             #include "UnityCG.cginc"
             
             struct v2f
             {
                 float4 pos : POSITION;
                 float2 depth : TEXCOORD0;
             };
             
             v2f vert( appdata_base v )
             {
                 v2f o;
                 o.pos = mul(UNITY_MATRIX_MVP, v.vertex);
                 COMPUTE_EYEDEPTH(o.depth);
                 
                 return o;
             }
             
             float4 frag(v2f i) : COLOR
             {
                 half4 d = i.depth.x / 20;
                 
                 half4 c;
                 c.r = d;
                 c.g = d;
                 c.b = d;
                 c.a = d;
                 
                 return c;
             }
             
             ENDCG
         }
     }
 }

Now, this is just a very simplified form of my final goal. Ultimately I won't be unpacking the depth textures before passing them over to the composite material, but for now I wanted to see that they were set up properly, and they seem to be. I can verify this by creating materials for each of them and applying them to a mesh--voila, back and front face depths are rendered.

So what's wrong? I suspect it may be my UVs in the VolumeFog shader, as I don't fully understand how to set those up, or it could be something wrong with my script handling the pipeline/property setup, or maybe something else entirely.

For the record, the above code compiles just fine, though the result is a fully transparent mesh. When I play with the Albedo/Alpha settings and input the f or b pixels respectively, they seem to be completely empty...

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avatar image whydoidoit · May 17, 2013 at 09:59 PM 0
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Looks to me like you need to get the fragments screen position for the UV in the volume shader part I'd imagine. See this: http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/448711/getting-a-pixels-screen-space-coordinate-in-a-frag.html

avatar image sgoodrow · May 17, 2013 at 10:20 PM 0
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I was wondering if that's what was going wrong. So to do that I need to generate the screen space position... Is this right? It still produces black:

float3 uv = mul((float3x3)UNITY_MATRIX_MVP, IN.worldPos);

I tried using IN.screenPos as suggested here: http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Components/SL-SurfaceShaderExamples.html but also to no avail, just black.

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