Shader Development from Scratch with Cg – Unity 6 Compatible by Penny de Byl

Ready to ditch those default materials and make your game objects truly pop? This course dives deep into shader development within Unity, teaching you how to program the graphics pipeline from the ground up using Cg/HLSL. You’ll go from understanding the basics of mesh vertices and textures to creating complex, custom visual effects that will make your game stand out.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Program custom shader effects using Unity Shaderlab with CG/HLSL.
• Apply mathematical concepts to manipulate the visual appearance of 3D objects.
• Develop unique rendering effects by working with mesh vertices and textures.
• Understand and apply knowledge of the graphics pipeline to solve shading challenges.

✅ Requirements

• Skills: Familiarity with the Unity Game Engine and procedural programming, like C#.
• Tools: A computer capable of running Unity.
• Hardware: A computer capable of running Unity and compiling shaders.

📝 Description

This course, updated for Unity 6, is your ticket to mastering shader programming using Cg/HLSL within Unity’s Shaderlab. You’ll learn to craft unique visual surfaces for game objects by diving into the graphics pipeline, understanding the math behind light and surfaces, and recreating popular shader effects. Penny de Byl, with over 25 years of experience, guides you through rendering queues, vector mathematics, graphics buffers, colour theory, 3D meshes, texture mapping, and various lighting models.

You’ll start by building your first shader and then explore how 3D models are structured for shader code. Discover shader properties, control them in code, and use Unity’s Inspector. The course covers diverse lighting models, from flat-shaded to highly reflective surfaces, and delves into graphics buffers for multi-draw call effects. You’ll also tackle transparency, blending, and advanced topics like holograms and rim lighting. The curriculum culminates in creating complex shaders like animated plasma and water, and even explores volumetric rendering for fog and clouds.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• Anyone curious about how computer graphics actually work under the hood.
• Developers aiming to write their own custom shaders for unique visual styles.
• Artists and programmers who love achieving cool visual effects through code and math.

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

Dr. Penny de Byl is a seasoned full-stack developer and academic with over 25 years of experience teaching game development, programming, computer graphics, and animation. She’s a full professor who has consulted for Unity and SAE, and her textbooks are used globally. Penny holds an honours degree in computer graphics and a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence for game characters. She’s won numerous teaching awards and uses a project-based approach to ensure students gain practical, lifelong skills. Her focus is on empowering learners with a robust toolkit for technology.