Unity Shaders -- Not terribly pleased

paulgswanson

Hi all, I have a question about shaders for Unity. Since some of you are actually developers and\or modelers I feel I can ask here.

So I wanted to bring some models from 3DsMax into Unity5 with this new PBR. I noticed when looking at the built in shaders they lack basic options.

I was hoping someone could point to a all in 1 solution since I really don't want to write my own shaders -- as in..I cant.

All I want in my shader is: Diffuse Normal Map Specular Ambient Occlusion Reflection Refraction

All in 1 menu, without flip flopping between drop downs.

I would preferably set every single object to these shaders and not flip flop between them. I don't want to use reflection maps or cube maps --those really are ridiculous and should not be required to be maps. Also would prefer is not be a node editor. Not really a fan of those with materials.

I don't have any issue with doing a UVmap or a render to texture (that's easy). But to be perfectly frank, I hate Unity default shaders options compared to 3dsMax scanline renderer. They made it unnecessarily complex.

Does anyone know of a solution or an asset I can buy? Or Maybe I'm just missing something obvious?

Kirb

Not entirely familiar with Unity's standard shaders as most of my stuff uses 2DTK's shaders; but doesn't Unity's standard (specular setup) shader have most of what you want in a single shader?

Diffuse, specular, normal, occlusion. Not certain about reflection/refraction, though.

Catacomber

Did you try asking in the Unity forum?

Gregorik

<blockquote>paulgswanson said: I was hoping someone could point to a all in 1 solution</blockquote>

I think you're looking for UNOShader (1.41). But there's also the more powerful Alloy Shader Framework (3.3.3), UBER Ultra (1.03) or ShaderForge (less frequently updated, 1.26 now), though the latter is node-based. I have all 4, and these were created to cure the very problem you have.

Keldryn

adds Alloy Shader Framework to his wish list. *

paulgswanson

@Catacomber I know I should have asked there first but I trust you guys\gals more than the folks in the Unity forums since we have occasional conversations already.

@Gregorik That is perfect and exactly what I was hoping for! Thanks a ton! UNOShader will be mine before this day is up. Adding Alloy Shader to my wish list as well.

I knew you guys would help me out if I asked nicely! :D thanks! This will make my life sooo much easier.

Gregorik

<blockquote>paulgswanson said: Thanks a ton! UNOShader will be mine before this day is up.</blockquote>

You're welcome. I think UNOShader is not the best option though, and it's probably worth to invest in the more expensive frameworks I mentioned, especially in the long run.

paulgswanson

@Gregorik Yeah, sadly it only support UNLIT so far, I'm hoping lit will not be terribly far down the line (I know it is in the pipeline). But otherwise its exactly what I wanted.

Phesant33

Hey guys, has anyone got any experience with bringing in PBR maps from substance painter with the above mentioned shaders (particularly Alloy, but any would be useful)? I find that my metalic maps using the standard unity shader (regardless of whether you use the specular or metalic paths) looks average.

Hoping one of these could be a fix? (I don't know if the maps Mayer generates are comparable to SP, I don't own it :(

Played with the workaround provided by SP and the result is playable at this point.

Catacomber

Am just beginning to realize the difference between the standard Unity shader and custom shaders.

I got Protofactor's Environment Pack which is really a very useful cave system--it comes with prefabs that use the standard Unity shader and prefabs that use Protofactor's custom shader---the difference in quality is quite notable.

Of course on mobile they'll have to be switched out to mobile shaders but on PC they look so good. : )

skwiggs1983

Alloy shader is really good. I was using it in my game. Unity has built-in support for substance, so when I started using substance designer, I switched back to unity shaders again.