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  • The Standard Shader is a powerful and versatile shader.

  • This single physically-based shader

  • can be used to make such a wide variety

  • of materials it's easily

  • possible that this one shader can make

  • every material in a given project.

  • The standard is used to create Unity's default material.

  • So all mesh rendered using

  • the default material will be using the standard shader.

  • All new materials that are created

  • will use the standard shader as well.

  • To change the shader used by a material

  • select the Shader menu on the material.

  • Select Standard to use the standard shader.

  • It is worth noting the Unity

  • has shaders available for both

  • popular approaches to physically-based rendering.

  • Metallic, as default,

  • and specular.

  • To choose the standard shader

  • using the specular approach

  • select Standard (Specular Setup).

  • Otherwise use Standard

  • for the metallic approach.

  • It is important to understand that the

  • metallic approach to physically-based shading

  • is not only for materials which are

  • supposed to look metallic.

  • This mode is known as metallic

  • because this approach is based on

  • defining how metallic or non-metallic

  • that material's surface is.

  • This is opposed to the specular approach

  • which defines how specular,

  • or non-specular that surface is.

  • Both approaches are valid ways to

  • describe a physically-based material.

  • This physically-based material is

  • still a standard Unity material

  • and this material is associated

  • with a renderer in the same way as usual.

  • There are three sections to the standard shader.

  • Rendering Mode.

  • Main Maps

  • and Secondary Maps.

  • The standard shader has four rendering modes.

  • Opaque, Cutout, Fade and Transparent.

  • Most materials are opaque, or solid materials.

  • Opaque is the default render mode.

  • For transparent materials, such as glass,

  • choose Transparent.

  • In transparent rendering mode

  • the alpha channel on the diffuse colour property

  • is used to control the level of transparency.

  • With rendering mode cutout

  • the alpha channel of the diffuse image

  • is used to mask out parts of the texture.

  • If the alpha channel has a gradient value to the mask

  • the alpha cutoff slider can be used

  • to adjust the shape of the cutout.

  • based on the strength of the mask in the alpha channel.

  • Rendering mode fade is similar

  • to rendering mode transparent.

  • Fade is intended for fading out

  • game objects on screen.

  • With rendering mode transparent

  • a transparent material will preserve it's

  • reflectivity regardless of it's alpha value.

  • Fade however will fade all

  • relevant aspects of the material

  • so the faded material is completely invisible.

  • The main map section defines the look of the material.

  • Before going in to the details of each property

  • there are a few subjects that are worth covering first.

  • Optimisation.

  • The standard shader is highly optimised.

  • When the standard shader is built

  • two important things happen.

  • All properties that are not being used are discarded.

  • The build target is checked

  • and the shader is optimised for that device.

  • Because of this there is no need to populate every

  • property with a map or values.

  • And there is no need to worry about wasted

  • resources due to unused properties.

  • Physically-based shading.

  • Physically-based shading tries to define

  • certain physical aspects of a material's surface.

  • Including it's diffuse colour,

  • specular refection and other properties

  • so the material behaves correctly

  • and believably in all lighting environments.

  • The response of the scene lighting to the material

  • created with a physically based shader

  • mimics light in the real physical world.

  • This means that even though there is

  • full control over the values on

  • all of the properties in the standard shader

  • there are certain ranges of values that

  • work best for certain types of materials.

  • This is particularly true of the metallic and specular values

  • depending up which approach is being used

  • Taking specular colour for example,

  • when analysing real-world materials

  • most materials have a specular range

  • that is a very dark grey.

  • Metals created with a specular workflow are one of the few exceptions,

  • they have very bright specular values.

  • As well, no material, even the most dull,

  • has no specularity at all.

  • This means to have a physically based

  • material behave correctly

  • some attention needs to be paid in using

  • the correct physical values for some key properties,

  • especially the specular or metallic properties

  • depending upon the approach being used.

  • For more information on physical-based shading,

  • material charts and sample materials

  • please see the information linked below.

  • There is no need to panic however.

  • Items with materials from previous versions of Unity

  • will work well out of the box.

  • Upgrading from a legacy diffuse shader

  • to the standard shader should display little or no difference.

  • In the main map section each of these properties

  • control one aspect of the final material.

  • Each property can be defined by a texture map.

  • With the metallic approach,

  • for the albido, metallic and emission properties

  • the texture is optional.

  • The albido and emission properties

  • can simply use a colour value instead of a texture.

  • The colour value is not available on

  • the emission property until the emissive

  • scale is larger than 0.

  • The metallic property can use a slider

  • instead of a texture.

  • The albido property uses a

  • combination of an optional texture.

  • And a colour value to define the base look of the material.

  • The colour value will tint the texture.

  • Where pure white leaves the main texture unaffected,

  • if there is no texture being used

  • the tint colour will be the base colour for the material

  • The metallic property can be defined

  • by either a texture

  • or a value from 0 to 1

  • set by the slider.

  • This defines the metalness of the material surface.

  • Metalness works very closely with smoothness.

  • The smoothness property is used to

  • control the smoothness,

  • or micro-surface detail, of the material.

  • It is also a value between 0 and 1.

  • The less smooth the surface is,

  • the more diffuse the reflections will be.

  • The more smooth, the sharper the reflections.

  • The metallic property can use a texture

  • to define the material's metalness.

  • This texture can be a simple shade of grey

  • used to define the metalness from black,

  • or non-metallic,

  • to white, completely metallic.

  • However, the advantage of using a texture

  • to define the metalness of a material

  • is to vary the metalness value

  • across the surface of the material.

  • An additional advantage is this texture's alpha channel.

  • This alpha channel can be used to define

  • a smoothness map.

  • Many materials are far more complex

  • than a single uniform surface.

  • Take this leather case for example.

  • With a single value for metalness and a

  • single value for smoothness

  • the case looks good.

  • But it could look better.

  • Use a metalness and smoothness map

  • to describe the properties.

  • And it looks much better.

  • Note how the straps are far more glossy

  • than the main body of the case.

  • Giving them a feel of polished leather.

  • It is worth noting that when using a texture

  • to define the metalness

  • the smoothness value must also be

  • defined by that texture's alpha channel.

  • It is also worth noting that the metalness

  • value is stored only in the red

  • channel of the metalness map's RGB values.

  • The green and blue channels are ignored.

  • It is often easier however to visualise

  • the metalness values of a texture

  • if all three colour channels share the same map,

  • so the texture appears as a greyscale image.

  • When using the standard shader with the specular setup

  • the metallic property is replaced with

  • the specular property.

  • The specular approach also uses

  • a smoothness property, which behaves essentially

  • in the same way as with the metalness approach.

  • The specualar property can either be a texture

  • or a colour value

  • and defines the specular reflectivity

  • of the material's surface.

  • The specular value can have some colour in it

  • but looking at real world values

  • with the exception of some metals

  • this is usually a grey and often very dark.

  • Specular maps are usually a dark grey as well.

  • When a specular texture map is not being used

  • the overall surface smoothness can be

  • set with the slider.

  • This is easier to see when the albido

  • texture is removed.

  • The ball looks like polished porcelain.

  • For a more true mirror, the specular from dark grey,

  • which makes the ball look like porcelain

  • in to the range of metals and it will now

  • reflect the sky and surroundings.

  • The smoother the surface, the more it is mirror-like.

  • The rougher the surface the more diffuse,

  • or scattered the reflections are.

  • The normal map property is an optional property

  • used to define the apparent bumpiness of the surface.

  • When a normal map is applied

  • the strength of the normal map can be controlled

  • by adjusting the normal map value.

  • As well as positive numbers, this value

  • can be a negative number

  • or 0.

  • The height map property is an optional

  • property used to define the apparent

  • height of the surface.

  • When a height map is applied

  • the strength of the height map can be controlled

  • by adjusting the height map value.

  • The occlusion property uses a

  • texture map to define the amount of

  • ambient occlusion that is applied to the material.

  • This is used to help darken

  • hidden or recessed areas on the texture.

  • The ambient occlusion map also

  • prevents specular and reflections in

  • these occluded areas, given the material

  • a more realistic look.

  • The emission property controls whether or not

  • the material's surface will emit light.

  • The material's emission value can contribute

  • to the scene's global illumination.

  • The strength of the emission can be controlled

  • by the emission value.

  • The shape of the emission can be controlled with an emission map.

  • The map can be a simple black and white map.

  • bBut this texture can also be a colour map.

  • When there is a value for emission

  • the contribution of the emissive light

  • can be assigned to either the baked light maps

  • or to the real time light maps.

  • The detail mask property is an optional mask element

  • to control the secondary maps.

  • Tiling and offset control the position of the map.

  • The secondary maps are used to define

  • additional surface detail.

  • This additional detail, sometimes referred to as micro detail,

  • is added on top of the surface defined

  • by the main maps.

  • This helps to add extra detail and

  • variation to a material, which is overlaid

  • on top of the main maps defining that material.

  • Because detail maps can be tiled across meshes

  • they can add incredibly high levels of surface detail.

The Standard Shader is a powerful and versatile shader.

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