• Products
  • Solutions
  • Made with Unity
  • Learning
  • Support & Services
  • Community
  • Asset Store
  • Get Unity

UNITY ACCOUNT

You need a Unity Account to shop in the Online and Asset Stores, participate in the Unity Community and manage your license portfolio. Login Create account
  • Blog
  • Forums
  • Answers
  • Evangelists
  • User Groups
  • Beta Program
  • Advisory Panel

Navigation

  • Home
  • Products
  • Solutions
  • Made with Unity
  • Learning
  • Support & Services
  • Community
    • Blog
    • Forums
    • Answers
    • Evangelists
    • User Groups
    • Beta Program
    • Advisory Panel

Unity account

You need a Unity Account to shop in the Online and Asset Stores, participate in the Unity Community and manage your license portfolio. Login Create account

Language

  • Chinese
  • Spanish
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Portuguese
  • Ask a question
  • Spaces
    • Default
    • Help Room
    • META
    • Moderators
    • Topics
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Badges
  • Home /
avatar image
0
Question by Kev_DK · May 28, 2015 at 09:27 AM · shaderlightingshadowlighting-model

Custom Lighting shader issue w Spot/Point lights and atten

I'm trying to create a Toon shader with very sharp shadows. I've got the outlines figured out, but I've been struggling to get the very sharp shadows that the toon-ish, almost anime-ish look requires. Recently, I found a solution to the problem when writing my own custom lighting model, but that solution only works with directional lights. The lighting model looks like this:

 half4 LightingEnvironment (SurfaceCustomOutput s, half3 lightDir, half3 viewDir, half atten) 
 {
     atten = step(0.5, atten);
 
     half3 h = normalize(lightDir + viewDir);
     float nh = max(0, dot(s.Normal, h));
     float spec = pow(nh, _Shininess) * s.Specular;
 
     half NdotL = dot (s.Normal, lightDir);
     half diff = (NdotL * 0.5 + 0.5) * atten;
     half3 ramp = tex2D (_Ramp, float2(diff, 0.5)).rgb;
     
     half4 c;
     c.rgb = (s.Albedo * _LightColor0.rgb * ramp + spec * _SpecColor);
     c.a = s.Alpha;
     return c;
 }

I'm filtering the atten value to get sharper shadows with the step function, basically combining the filtered atten with the shadow received from the light source/normal calculation. The final steps looks into a 1D ramp texture (black-to-white with a very sharp gradient). This also means that atten is not directly multiplied into the final equation, but rather used in the steps leading up to it.

For a directional light, this looks fairly promising:

alt text

Unfortunately, this breaks completely when adding a spot light or a point light. It basically looks like a 2D texture is being displayed in front of the rest (the screenshot shows a spot light):

alt text

I've tested with some different setups, and I can make this issue go away by multiplying atten onto the final equation (which is also the standard way of doing things, as far as I can tell). But doing that means that all the other code is useless, as it'll then show the standard rough shadows on top of the sharp one.

I'm not the most experienced in this area, so any tips on how to fix this (or potentially get very sharp shadows any other way), I'm all ears. The directional light I have in the scene uses the Unity default values for shadows. Unity version 5.0.1f1

shading1.png (304.6 kB)
shading2.png (316.1 kB)
Comment
Add comment
10 |3000 characters needed characters left characters exceeded
▼
  • Viewable by all users
  • Viewable by moderators
  • Viewable by moderators and the original poster
  • Advanced visibility
Viewable by all users

0 Replies

· Add your reply
  • Sort: 

Your answer

Hint: You can notify a user about this post by typing @username

Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 524.3 kB each and 1.0 MB total.

Welcome to Unity Answers

If you’re new to Unity Answers, please check our User Guide to help you navigate through our website and refer to our FAQ for more information.

Before posting, make sure to check out our Knowledge Base for commonly asked Unity questions.

Check our Moderator Guidelines if you’re a new moderator and want to work together in an effort to improve Unity Answers and support our users.

Follow this Question

Answers Answers and Comments

2 People are following this question.

avatar image avatar image

Related Questions

Optimise adding shadows in scene using Unity iPhone 2 Answers

Distance based lighting 1 Answer

Error ShadowMap Sampling in Additional Lights - URP Unity 2021.1.2 0 Answers

Recieving Shadow on Custom Shader 1 Answer

Toon shader light culling shadow issue 0 Answers


Enterprise
Social Q&A

Social
Subscribe on YouTube social-youtube Follow on LinkedIn social-linkedin Follow on Twitter social-twitter Follow on Facebook social-facebook Follow on Instagram social-instagram

Footer

  • Purchase
    • Products
    • Subscription
    • Asset Store
    • Unity Gear
    • Resellers
  • Education
    • Students
    • Educators
    • Certification
    • Learn
    • Center of Excellence
  • Download
    • Unity
    • Beta Program
  • Unity Labs
    • Labs
    • Publications
  • Resources
    • Learn platform
    • Community
    • Documentation
    • Unity QA
    • FAQ
    • Services Status
    • Connect
  • About Unity
    • About Us
    • Blog
    • Events
    • Careers
    • Contact
    • Press
    • Partners
    • Affiliates
    • Security
Copyright © 2020 Unity Technologies
  • Legal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookies
  • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
  • Cookies Settings
"Unity", Unity logos, and other Unity trademarks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Unity Technologies or its affiliates in the U.S. and elsewhere (more info here). Other names or brands are trademarks of their respective owners.
  • Anonymous
  • Sign in
  • Create
  • Ask a question
  • Spaces
  • Default
  • Help Room
  • META
  • Moderators
  • Explore
  • Topics
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Badges