Advanced Configuration and Key Rendering Concepts

This section explains the various settings available in the Advanced Configuration panel of the All In 1 3D Shader. These settings allow you to fine-tune how your materials render and interact with Unity's rendering system.

The Advanced Configuration panel gives you complete control over low-level rendering properties. You can access it by clicking the "Show Advanced Configuration" button in the material inspector.

Presets

At the top of the panel, you'll find three preset buttons that will automatically configure the advanced settings for common use cases:

• Additive: Sets up the material for additive blending, ideal for effects like fire, glow, or energy that should add their brightness to the scene.

• Opaque: Standard rendering mode for solid objects that don't need any transparency. By default, the Opaque preset will also enable the Alpha Cutoff, this effect avoids drawing pixels under a certain alpha threshold, this allows us to have parts of Opaque objects fade without having Transparency.

• Transparent: Sets up proper transparency for objects that need alpha blending.

Configuration Options

• Blend mode Source/Destination: Controls how the material blends with what's already been drawn to the screen. Different combinations create effects like additive, multiplicative, or alpha blending. The Source factor refers to the material being rendered, while Destination refers to what's already in the render buffer. https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/SL-Blend.html
• Culling Mode: Determines which faces of your mesh are rendered: https://docs.unity3d.com/6000.0/Documentation/Manual/SL-Cull.html

  • Off: All faces are drawn (both front and back)

  • Front: Only back faces are drawn (front faces are culled)

  • Back: Only front faces are drawn (back faces are culled)

• Depth Write: Controls whether the material writes to the depth buffer: https://docs.unity3d.com/2018.2/Documentation/Manual/SL-CullAndDepth.html

  • On: The material updates the Z-buffer, allowing other objects to be occluded by this object

  • Off: The material doesn't update the Z-buffer, useful for transparent effects that shouldn't block other objects

• Z Test Mode: Determines when pixels from this material are drawn based on the depth buffer: https://docs.unity3d.com/2018.2/Documentation/Manual/SL-CullAndDepth.html

  • LessEqual: Draws when depth is less than or equal to what's in the buffer (standard)

  • Less: Only draws when depth is less than what's in the buffer

  • Equal: Only draws when depth is exactly equal to what's in the buffer

  • Always: Always draws regardless of the depth buffer (useful for UI or overlay effects)

• Color Write Mask: Controls which color channels the material writes to: https://docs.unity3d.com/6000.0/Documentation/Manual/SL-ColorMask.html

  • All: Writes to all RGBA channels

  • RGB: Only writes to color channels, preserving existing alpha

  • A: Only writes to alpha channel, preserving existing colors

  • 0: Doesn't write to any channels (rare, used for specific effects)

• Fog On: When enabled, the material will interact with Unity's fog system, becoming progressively obscured as distance increases.

• Spherize Normals: When enabled, this option adjusts the normal vectors of the mesh to make it appear more spherical, particularly useful for stylized lighting on characters or objects that should appear rounded.

• Use Custom Time: When enabled, the material animations will use a custom time variable instead of Unity's built-in time. This allows you to control animations independently from the game's time scale, useful for effects that should continue during pauses or slow-motion. See the Scaled Time section to see how this feature can be used.

• Enable GPU Instancing: Allows multiple instances of the same mesh with this material to be rendered in a single draw call, significantly improving performance when many identical objects are in view.

• Render Queue: Determines the order in which this material renders relative to others in the scene. Higher numbers render later. Common ranges:

  • 0-2500: Opaque geometry (default 2000)

  • 2501-3000: Transparent geometry (default 3000)

  • 3001+: Overlay effects

Understanding these settings gives you fine control over exactly how your materials render, allowing you to solve visual artifacts or achieve specific effects that wouldn't be possible with just the standard shader parameters.