Hi there! I'm a coder so I can't give you any specific feedback or requests, although I'd be interested to know what made you want to make your own editor? ie what was wrong with the existing ones?
Side-note: can't you store your serialization data in a sibling ScriptableObject? That way you could take advantage of Unity's built-in serialization... although I suppose you have lists of factory objects (that you don't necessarily know the type of beforehand), which is notoriously awkward to serialize in Unity.
If you don't want to pollute the shader itself, you could also store in the file's userdata.
Hi there! I'm a coder so I can't give you any specific feedback or requests, although I'd be interested to know what made you want to make your own editor? ie what was wrong with the existing ones?
Side-note: can't you store your serialization data in a sibling ScriptableObject? That way you could take advantage of Unity's built-in serialization... If you don't want to pollute the shader itself, you could also store in the file's userdata.
Hi!
What made me want to make a shader editor was the fact that the existing ones weren't good enough, in my opinion! When I heard that there were shader editors for Unity, I expected something that was about as good as UDKs material editor, or better, but they weren't. The primary feature I was missing from the existing editors was smooth workflow and visual feedback, and also being up-to-date
I was fiddling around with ScriptableObject quite a lot, that's what I was trying to get working. I did have some weird behavior when the script recompile / assembly reload passed just fine, but pressing play didn't. I finally found out that I needed to set base.hideFlags to a specific value to make it survive the second assembly reload.
Anyhow, currently I'm saving the node data inside the shader itself, as single commented line of XML, so it doesn't affect the shader parser
Currently you can save node data, but not load, so there's a little bit of work left in that regard! I'm currently considering which workflow would work best for creating new shaders. There is a bit of a disconnect between shaders and materials, and I would like to minimize the effort as much as possible, without auto-generating materials cluttering your project in folders where you didn't want them. In any case, I will most likely make a custom inspector view for Shaders, adding buttons to open them in SF and expose a little bit more info etc.
I can't wait for this to be on the asset store. I can''t remember that I've been as hyped for any editor extension as I am for this one right here. I'm really tempted to go Fry on you and yell: "Shut up and take my money!!!"
A little update - I'll be working on the actual workflow/asset management before I do a bunch of usability tests to eliminate the most obvious bugs in the system.
Things will progress quite slowly now that I've picked up freelancing at Avalanche Studios for another two weeks (This week and the next), but after that there could be lots of time to work on Shader Forge again
Ah, I know how it is, when money is short, gotta pay some bills. I hope that when you get this on Unity Store you get lots of money. At least I'm willing to pay for it around $100,00
Ah, I know how it is, when money is short, gotta pay some bills. I hope that when you get this on Unity Store you get lots of money. At least I'm willing to pay for it around $100,00
Definitely! I suspect the price will land somewhere between $50-$100, we'll see how it turns out It ultimately depends on how polished and on how many features will make it into the release version.
Sorry for the lack of updates - I've been rather busy with work!
However, serialization of node data is pretty much done, so now you can save/load your shaders in Shader Forge
I have yet to implement saving all the metadata, which is all the external settings for the shader, such as lighting model, ambient term, depth sorting, etc!
A little update!
Alpha testing is around the corner. I've been preparing a feedback/bug reporting place on the web, as well as getting all the file management stuff done. Here are the latest visual additions;
Improved transmission and light wrapping - a fake but cheap SSS effect
FUCKING FINALLY! OMG, SOMEONE ACTUALLY DID IT! HALLELUJAH! I can't stand it when Node shaders do the entire "Bezier when close, linear when far" for the links and try to be all extra fancy with distance and size of the workspace, only then to snap change to something else.
Seriously, this is the best thing you could have done in forever and for that, you are awesome.
nice! this will all work in unity 4 free Im guessing? I have pro at work but not at home.
Everything that works in Unity Free when it comes to shaders and quality, will be supported in Shader Forge running on Unity Free. So if you can't do refraction in Unity Free, then refraction won't work in Shader Forge on that version either.
So it's basically all up to the limitations between pro and free!
Hehe, don't get your hopes up too much now! It's an Alpha, which means it's lacking a ton of features and is riddled with bugs where you least expect them
(Which I hope you are all aware of)
Excuse me if this has been asked(I didn't see it), but does the previewer work in Unity free? One of the major drawbacks to strumpy was not being able to see what you're doing as you connect things together in the free version.
Excuse me if this has been asked(I didn't see it), but does the previewer work in Unity free? One of the major drawbacks to strumpy was not being able to see what you're doing as you connect things together in the free version.
It should, but I haven't tried it! I'll have a look tomorrow before I roll out Alpha 0.01
I've been contacting individual testers for a while now, to make sure 0.01 works fine before mailing all the testers. 0.02 is most likely going to be the "first" one that is sent to all testers.
0.01 has some nasty issues that should be sorted before it's out
I just saw the alpha sent out in my inbox so I had to stay up and try it haha. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, but for whatever reason whenever I click the "Mesh type" in the editor, it opens up a .fbx in Visual Studio.
I didn't even know I could open up .fbx files in Visual Studio before this lol. Anyway, I made a thread about it and provided some pictures on the feedback forum. SF is awesome so far, can't wait to see where it goes in the future, you've secured my purchase already!
Alpha 0.04 is now out!
• Switched line drawing method - should be faster and might work properly on Mac now
• Fog checkbox should now work properly
• You can now cancel creation of new nodes
• Added Dot Product node
• Added Min node
• Added Max node
Glad it worked out I'm currently away for the weekend, so there won't be an update for a while. I'll have a look at my mail and UserEcho occasionally though!
Replies
Side-note: can't you store your serialization data in a sibling ScriptableObject? That way you could take advantage of Unity's built-in serialization... although I suppose you have lists of factory objects (that you don't necessarily know the type of beforehand), which is notoriously awkward to serialize in Unity.
If you don't want to pollute the shader itself, you could also store in the file's userdata.
Hi!
What made me want to make a shader editor was the fact that the existing ones weren't good enough, in my opinion! When I heard that there were shader editors for Unity, I expected something that was about as good as UDKs material editor, or better, but they weren't. The primary feature I was missing from the existing editors was smooth workflow and visual feedback, and also being up-to-date
I was fiddling around with ScriptableObject quite a lot, that's what I was trying to get working. I did have some weird behavior when the script recompile / assembly reload passed just fine, but pressing play didn't. I finally found out that I needed to set base.hideFlags to a specific value to make it survive the second assembly reload.
Anyhow, currently I'm saving the node data inside the shader itself, as single commented line of XML, so it doesn't affect the shader parser
Currently you can save node data, but not load, so there's a little bit of work left in that regard! I'm currently considering which workflow would work best for creating new shaders. There is a bit of a disconnect between shaders and materials, and I would like to minimize the effort as much as possible, without auto-generating materials cluttering your project in folders where you didn't want them. In any case, I will most likely make a custom inspector view for Shaders, adding buttons to open them in SF and expose a little bit more info etc.
Things will progress quite slowly now that I've picked up freelancing at Avalanche Studios for another two weeks (This week and the next), but after that there could be lots of time to work on Shader Forge again
Thanks.
Sure! Check the first post for info on how to sign up
Definitely! I suspect the price will land somewhere between $50-$100, we'll see how it turns out
However, serialization of node data is pretty much done, so now you can save/load your shaders in Shader Forge
I have yet to implement saving all the metadata, which is all the external settings for the shader, such as lighting model, ambient term, depth sorting, etc!
Alpha testing is around the corner. I've been preparing a feedback/bug reporting place on the web, as well as getting all the file management stuff done. Here are the latest visual additions;
Improved transmission and light wrapping - a fake but cheap SSS effect
Seriously, this is the best thing you could have done in forever and for that, you are awesome.
Everything that works in Unity Free when it comes to shaders and quality, will be supported in Shader Forge running on Unity Free. So if you can't do refraction in Unity Free, then refraction won't work in Shader Forge on that version either.
So it's basically all up to the limitations between pro and free!
I had planned to use GrabPass, which I've heard is a pro only feature. I would happily be corrected if I'm wrong about that
http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GPUGems2/gpugems2_chapter19.html
(Which I hope you are all aware of)
It should, but I haven't tried it! I'll have a look tomorrow before I roll out Alpha 0.01
Pretty much everything that's green (And some of the yellow) on this page will be available in 0.01
0.01 has some nasty issues that should be sorted before it's out
Enjoy!
Here are the example shaders currently included in SF Alpha 0.03:
I didn't even know I could open up .fbx files in Visual Studio before this lol. Anyway, I made a thread about it and provided some pictures on the feedback forum. SF is awesome so far, can't wait to see where it goes in the future, you've secured my purchase already!
w00t! great news! Thx!
Thanks for reporting all these issues!
Will now test, test, test!
• Switched line drawing method - should be faster and might work properly on Mac now
• Fog checkbox should now work properly
• You can now cancel creation of new nodes
• Added Dot Product node
• Added Min node
• Added Max node
Textures are just photoshop and ndo.
This is a simple diffuse, specular(with gloss in alpha) and normal map shader
This is that same shader with a cubemap that has its power altered by the gloss. Shiny! haha
thanks! really nice easy to use interface so it only took 30 mins.
So vertex color would be nice for me too