81 lines
2.8 KiB
ReStructuredText
81 lines
2.8 KiB
ReStructuredText
.. _doc_shader_materials:
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Shader materials
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================
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Introduction
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------------
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For the most common cases, Godot provides ready to use materials for
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most types of shaders, such as :ref:`SpatialMaterial <class_SpatialMaterial>`,
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:ref:`CanvasItemMaterial <class_CanvasItemMaterial>` and :ref:`ParticlesMaterial <class_ParticlesMaterial>`.
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They are flexible implementations that cover most use cases.
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Shader materials allow writing a custom shader directly, for maximum flexibility.
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Examples of this are:
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- Create procedural textures.
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- Create complex texture blending effects.
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- Create animated materials, or materials that change over time.
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- Create refractive effects or other advanced effects.
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- Create special lighting shaders for more exotic materials.
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- Animate vertices, like tree leaves or grass.
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- Create custom particle code.
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- And much more!
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Godot provides built in functionality to make frequent operations
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easier. Additionally, Godot's shader editor will detect errors as you
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type, so you can see your edited shaders in real-time. It is also
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possible to edit shaders using a visual, node-based graph editor.
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Creating a ShaderMaterial
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-------------------------
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Create a new ShaderMaterial in some object of your choice. Go to the
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"Material" property and create a ShaderMaterial.
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.. image:: img/shader_material_create.png
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Next, click on the shader material to see its properties. From here you
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can create a shader or visual shader. Regular shaders use code to set
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their properties while a visual shader uses a node based workflow.
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If you need to you can convert a visual shader to a text shader.
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However you can't convert a text shader to a visual shader.
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Choose one of them and you can start editing your shader.
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.. image:: img/shader_create.png
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If you create a regular shader click on it and the shader editor will open.
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.. image:: img/shader_material_editor.png
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If you create a visual shader the visual shader editor will open automatically.
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.. image:: img/visual_shader_editor.png
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In the visual shader editor you can click a button and see what your visual
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shader looks like as shader code. This can be useful if you're trying to
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replicate a text shader as nodes, or it can be used as a preview for converting
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your visual shader to a text shader.
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.. image:: img/visual_shader_code.png
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.. note::
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To learn more about visual shaders, read :ref:`doc_visual_shaders`.
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Converting to ShaderMaterial
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----------------------------
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It is possible to convert from SpatialMaterial, CanvasItemMaterial and
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ParticlesMaterial to ShaderMaterial. To do so, go to the material properties
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and select the convert option.
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.. image:: img/shader_material_convert.png
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.. note::
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Using the convert option will turn the SpatialMaterial into a ShaderMaterial
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with a text shader, not a visual shader.
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