shader

There are 50 posts filed in shader ( this is page 1 of 10).

Shader Showcase Saturday #11: Return of the Obra Dinn

Most indie developers might know Lucas Pope as the developers of the critically acclaimed Papers, Please. Thanks to its simple, yet thoughtful mechanics, Papers, Please helped to shape an entirely new genre of video games. And it even inspired a short film with the same name.

Despite its success, one of the most recurring criticisms the game has faced is related to the apparent simplicity of its execution. With Return of the Obra Dinn, Lucas Pope clears any doubt with a game that, by itself, is nothing less than an achievement in technical excellence.

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Shader Showcase Saturday #10: Fortnite Procedural Animations

It is no mystery that Fortnite has now become one of the most successful computer games of all time. While many see it as a case study for excellence in marketing and game design, the game itself features some very interesting shader effects.

From a Technical Artist perspective, the most striking effect featured in Fortnite is the self-building effect. When an object is being constructed, its individual pieces appear one by one out of thin air, and fly into position. The same effect is somehow played, in reverse, when an object is damaged, by showing those very pieces flying away and disappearing (above).

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Shader Showcase Saturday #9: Interior Mapping

If you have been on Twitter this past week, you might have seen videos of the new Spider-Man, developed by Insomniac Games. The game has been praised for its stunning visuals and exceptional attention to detail. One effect, in particular, has captured the players’ attention. It appears that you can see inside every single window of every building. But at a closer look, something does not look right. What’s going on?

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Shader Showcase Saturday #8: Subsurface Scattering

If you ever placed a strong light source behind your hand, you might have noticed how light is able to filter through the skin. Even more interesting is the fact that light “travels” inside the skin, and can sometimes make the entire hand glow. This optical phenomenon is called subsurface scattering (or SSS) and is caused by individual photons penetrating the skin, bouncing (scattering) inside it, and finally exiting from a different point. For this reason, subsurface scattering is also called subsurface light transport.

Most semi-transparent materials exhibit a certain degree of SSS, which gives them a “smoother” look. Milk, for instance, owe its uniform colouration to the presence of fat molecules which diffuse and scatter visible light very well. Even solid materials can be subjected to SSS. Marble is a typical example, and this is the reason why most subsurface scattering demos feature marble statues. Skin, milk, marble and wax are the materials which most commonly owe their look to SSS, although this is an optical phenomenon that is present in virtually all non-metallic materials.

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Shader Showcase Saturday #6: Dynamic Snow

After two previous instalments of Shader Showcase Saturday focused on wind and rain, talking about snow was simply unavoidable.

Creating realistic snow is a serious challenge, which will be further explored in the following months. This week, we focus on how shaders can be used to add snow to an existing scene. Most of the references shown in this post will not be photorealistic. We will show on how to simulate photorealistic snow and frost in a few weeks. If you cannot wait, I would strongly advise having a look at Winter Suite. It contains some of the most realistic shaders for snowy and frosty surfaces.

As you can see from the image above, it supports translucency, subsurface scattering and the shimmering effect that is typically seen in snow.

I have also dedicated a proper tutorial on snow shading, which you can find in the article titled Surface Shading in Unity. Continue reading →