SAS - Standard Anisotropic Shader

Standard Anisotropic Shader, (SAS) aims to model the light behavior seen in striped micro-surfaces. Such cases may be brushed metal or many types of fabrics.
Apart from an anisotropic BRDF, it introduces some options to model other types of softer cloth such as velvet or wool.
All the content seen in the images is included in the package. Check the documentation for more information and tutorials.
Buyers of Cloth Shader for Unity 4 can upgrade to this new version.

Some samples of what can be done:

Carbon fiber:



Metals:

Fabrics:

Web player demos:

Carbon fiber Demo | Metals Demo

Chair Demo | Blanket Demo

Asset Store | Documentation​

 

Looks great!

 

Really nice shader!

 

Hmmm - is this not compatible with 5.3? I installed it and get pink objects - even in the demo scenes..... or is there something I'm missing?

This is in a fresh scene - nothing but the shader package imported - Unity version 5.3.1f1

 

I tried the web demos but the shaders don't seem to work. Textures and alpha channels seem to be missing. Is it because I just updated to the latest version of Unity (5.3.1f1)? Perhaps the browser plug-in has a problem.

 

Hey Paul,

You might have to force re-install the web-player to the latest version to get it to work since the latest Unity installer doesn't install the player any more. I've seen this when I tried to play a new (5.3) build on machines that had the old (5.2) player installed - it can sometimes require a full uninstall/reinstall/restart cycle, but sometimes it just works with an install of the new player.

(Oh - and FYI - the demos work for me, but the asset itself gives me only the dreaded Pink Material of Death)

 

Thanks for helping others.

Well, many of you have emailed me regarding an issue with 5.3. As you can check, I submitted it with 5.2, so I didn't know it won't work in newer versions.
To solve it replace unity_LightGammaCorrectionConsts_PIDiv4 -> UNITY_PI / 4.0 in StandardAnisotropic.cginc

 

Could this asset be used for hair? Or it doesn't have alpha channel?

Regards,
Carlos

 

The blend mode I implemented is alpha test. I would suggest to use a multipass render for hair. First pass with alpha test and alpha blend on top. Your idea sounds interesting indeed. I should implement alpha blend too.
Thanks.

 

Hi
is it mobile ready?

 

Are you... are you just using 2 meshes for carbon fiber? I bought this asset solely for that fancy carbon fiber look and you didn't mention it have to use 2 meshes\2 materials?

 

Humm... well, carbon fiber is not lacquered by definition. Its basically a fiber framework, it could be lacquered or not.

But anyhow, this sounds like a good idea for the next update. Thanks for that.

 

Hey guys,
The next update will split the shader into 4 different versions:

• Opaque
• Opaque lacquered
• Cutout
• Transparent

This will help to optimize the shader. Otherwise, I would have to compute unneeded passes.

The transparent one casts shadows, btw. Next step will be to make experiments for hair shading.



For the lacquered version I have included a single parameter for fresnel reflectance:



Let me know if you will need extra parameters for this extra layer.

 

I'm also wondering if this is mobile compatible??

 

Can somebody confirm this?

 

I'm assuming you don't have an android device to test on?
As an initial test you could install the Android SDK and in Unity switch platforms to Android and see how it runs in the editor. Then see if you can build an APK successfully.
While this doesn't guarantee it will run properly on android it is a good test to see if you are using anything unsupported right out of the gate.
Anybody with more knowledge please correct me if I'm wrong!

 

Could you make this shader compatible with Alloy?

 

Any way we can see a video of the cloth animating to see how well the shader behaves on dynamic objects?
Because I am seeing things like Ambient Occlusion which are "supposed" to be performance hogs.

 

The AO is from an AO map (it's near the top in the Asset Store files list).

@David_MG
I second the request for seeing the cloth animating, please! (and, in fact, seeing the cloth in the video for this version! (cars and balls are lovely but cloth is the reason we're here!))

I'm guessing the AO is required? Does that imply animating the cloth doesn't look so good? (Guess I'm asking what are the bounds of usefulness of the asset?)

Thanks, Rupert.

 

How can I use this shader in the version 5.1, I get an shader error "in 'Standard Anisotropic Transparent': unrecognized identifier 'Unity_GlossyEnvironmentData' at Assets/Standard Anisotropic Shader/Shaders/StandardAnisotropic.cginc(132) (on d3d11)"?
I can not use a later version of Unity, since there is no longer support web player and my web player builds are broken in these versions.

 

I sent you the modified version for 5.1, right?

 

I use this shader in the version 5.4.
I found artifact with Lacquered.
I hope the next update.

 

Hi. I found an error in the shader. The result was black if no lights in scene. Fixed now.

 

Thank you for update!

I test version 1.2.

But the artifact is not fixed.

I tested a fresh scene and default settings.

Is there a setting that I need to be careful?

 

Im sorry, but I have no idea what's going on. Im am rewriting the lacquered version right now. If you want to test it, mail me.
So yes, the lacquered thing. I have been playing with it and I miss a secondary occlusion for it, so here is:



I will add this option for every variation.

 

Some images of the new lacquered variation

 

Is WebGL supported?

i'm getting:
"Shader error in 'Standard Anisotropic': 'mul' : cannot resolve function call unambiguously (check parameter types) 'xyz' : vector field selection out of range at line 71 (on gles)"

 

Hi @David_MG,

is webgl support planned?

any idea about iPad PRO support?

Thanks!
Kenshin

 

Yeah, I want this to get fixed.

Yeah, I made some tests before the last release, and got this error too. I spent a while with that but couldn't find what was the problem.

 

Hi @David_MG,

I am working on version 1.3 to realize realistic velvet material, but it is not so good.
Are you planning to release any update that improve fabrics visual quality?

 

Is this asset still alive and supported?

 

yes, it is

 

Thank you David!

Any chance to have an answer to my question?

 

Humm, I think that the shader already does a good job. I have used it in big projects and everyone was always happy with it. I would say that input data is 60% of the shading work. If you feed it correctly you can get great results. These are examples of what can be achieved with sas when you spend LOTS of time creating data:


It's a tricky and time consuming process. You have to analyze the surface you want to mimic, identify the important features and solve them one by one.

Have you checked the red chair material?

 

I agree.. the shader does a great job. But many times is really hard to get the desired results.
Create texture for complex material sometimes is really not intuitive.
I was wondering if the shader can support a Detail Albedo (with mask). Many times fabbric have decorations, writes, logos etc... with a detail Albedo we could manage it much better. What do you think ?

 

This is a very good idea!

 

Yeah, indeed, I already did that for a client. Okay, I will work on that today.

 

Okay, done. I used the same method used in Standard, so it won't be surprises
Additionally, we can select uv channel.

Some desirable options may be color = lerp(color2, color1, color1.a), so you can mix those textures based on the alpha from the first texture. And another one, ability to select different blend modes.

 

Great news David!!!

 

Wow, can't wait to use it

 

Thanks guys, I submitted it last Friday, let's wait now some days until its approved. Cheers

 

Great, thanks a lot!

 

Hi @David_MG,

would be great to have a limited/simplified version for mobile.

What do you think about it?

 

Well, the GUI is full of checkers. If all of them are off, what you have is a simple diffuse.

 

Exactly for this I think that mobile solution is not just switch off checkers but I am interested to know if you have in your todo list to try to work on a good shader that works on modern mobile GPU.

It was a serious requesta but I haven't received a serious answer

 

You ask me to do a mobile version, but I still don't know what's the problem. Maybe performance?

 

Did you tried to open a project with your shader and just switch unity editor on Android?

I have done it and the result is that material with your shader looks with the purple color (shader error).
Reading your answer I understand that mobile version is simply not interesting for you.

 

Does this support OpenGL ES? It's usually customary to write what shader model is supported when releasing shaders.

 

Hello.
Cool shader, but...
You can add support for Post-processing Stack v2, namely the "Ambient Only" mode for Ambient Occlusion?
Currently, on your shader is missing Ambient Occlusion when "Ambient Only" checked.

 

Hi there,

is it possible to have this shader in Mobile (iOS and android)?
In the unity editor, every material appears to be pink. And if you compile and run it, all the nice shading settings are gone

While importing, I get this error:

Shader error in 'SAS/Opaque': invalid subscript 'boxMax' at Assets/Standard Anisotropic Shader/Shaders/StandardAnisotropic.cginc(212) (on glcore)

thanks!