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How much can shaders change the visual quality of your project?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by NutellaDaddy, Apr 24, 2014.

  1. NutellaDaddy

    NutellaDaddy

    Joined:
    Oct 22, 2013
    Posts:
    288
    I was just wanting to know? Can anyone show me some before and after using custom shaders or something. How mcuh do they change the quality, drastically?
     
  2. sicga123

    sicga123

    Joined:
    Jan 26, 2011
    Posts:
    782
    It's a depends answer again. If the project is 2D then often better effects can be achieved by a good artist in photoshop, if one doesn't have access to a good artist, then shaders can drastically change the quality both of 2D and 3D. Look at the shader packages in the store usually they can be switched on and off in the demos, that will give you an indication of how drastic the visual quality improvement is.
     
  3. smd863

    smd863

    Joined:
    Jan 26, 2014
    Posts:
    292
    Shaders completely control the visual quality of your project. A shader is literally the instructions you give the computer to take your geometry, textures, and scene information to generate the final image.

    If you want of an idea of what you can do with custom shaders in Unity, a good place to look is the Marmoset Skyshop thread.

    The default shaders in Unity 4 are perfectly decent, but they are starting to show their age. From the look of things so far Unity 5 should be a big improvement.
     
  4. MarkrosoftGames

    MarkrosoftGames

    Joined:
    Jan 5, 2012
    Posts:
    442
    if its a good shader then probably a lot.

    otherwise its like asking how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck had a woodchipper?

    edit: wrong kind of would
     
  5. NutellaDaddy

    NutellaDaddy

    Joined:
    Oct 22, 2013
    Posts:
    288
    Alright thanks for the answers. I've been looking into because I
    ve been learning strumpy's shader editor.
     
  6. orbobservation

    orbobservation

    Joined:
    Feb 28, 2013
    Posts:
    87
    You will need some decent shaders, there's many ready to go on the asset store. I've bought quite a few solutions which I suggest you check out- Skyshop, Alloy Physical Shader, Shader Forge, Bitmap2Material...