Trying to create a glow effect in Unity

[Takashima]

I recently started creating custom assets for VAM. I'm learning something every day, but I'm stuck at this one.

I want to create a glow effect for a neon sign. You can see the sign in the attached screenshot in Blender and in Unity. I have watched tutorials for Unity to create a glow effect, but they are using post-processing, which then isn't available in the game or they are creating custom shaders (for example with the lightweight render pipeline), which are also not available in the game.

Couple of questions that I have:

1. Is it correct that only very few shaders from Unity work in VAM? Is there a list which ones?
2. Do you know of a way to create such a glow effect that will work in VAM?
3. Bonus question: In the attached image do you see the mesh wire fence above the neon sign? Any idea with which shader I can recreate how it looks in Blender? (-> it's a texture that uses a color for transparency)
4. Bonus question 2: Do you know a good shader that I can use for glass (like a drinking glass)?

Any help and or clarification is very much appreciated.

 

[VamWizard]

Keep in mind that my knowledge of shaders is a bit limited.

1- I remember bringing in a relatively complex custom shader from Amplify Shader and it worked correctly inside VAM. As long as you use the built-in pipeline, I believe it will work.
2- did you try to check the emissive option in your material to see if it looks good enough? (Also, if you are willing to buy Amplify Shader, you can create the shaders in a similar way as they are created in the SRP.)
3- the Standard shader > cutout can be used for this.
4- the amplify shader comes with a "simple glass" shader. Perhaps the Standard>transparent will also do. (as i said i don't know much about shaders )

 

[MacGruber]

Is it correct that only very few shaders from Unity work in VAM? Is there a list which ones?

Most shader materials should work, if they are for Unity 2018.1. However, I recommend to just use the Unity "Standard" shaders. They can do all what you ask for here. For glass use rendering mode "Transparent", for the mesh wire use "Cutout". Both use the albedo texture's alpha channel. Make sure to check texture import settings as well.

Unity - Manual: Material parameters

docs.unity3d.com

Do you know of a way to create such a glow effect that will work in VAM?

You need a post-effect as the effect reaches beyond the geometry of your neon sign. Make your neon sign uses a bright emissive texture. Then add the PostMagic plugin to your scene and enable Bloom. Tweak the plugin values, you can make it blur all almost-white pixels, which is what you want here. Note that PostMagic has terrible quality effects, because it's based on some very old effects burried in VaM, but its what we have and it can't be improved.

PostMagic - Plugins -

Admin Note: This plugin is specifically made for desktop use and as stated in the description only partially works in VR. If you wish to not have this plugin loaded at all you can permanently disable it from within the "Package Manager"...

hub.virtamate.com

 

[Takashima]

Keep in mind that my knowledge of shaders is a bit limited.

1- I remember bringing in a relatively complex custom shader from Amplify Shader and it worked correctly inside VAM. As long as you use the built-in pipeline, I believe it will work.
2- did you try to check the emissive option in your material to see if it looks good enough? (Also, if you are willing to buy Amplify Shader, you can create the shaders in a similar way as they are created in the SRP.)
3- the Standard shader > cutout can be used for this.
4- the amplify shader comes with a "simple glass" shader. Perhaps the Standard>transparent will also do. (as i said i don't know much about shaders )

Thank you, I will try your suggestions.

 

[Takashima]

Most shader materials should work, if they are for Unity 2018.1. However, I recommend to just use the Unity "Standard" shaders. They can do all what you ask for here. For glass use rendering mode "Transparent", for the mesh wire use "Cutout". Both use the albedo texture's alpha channel. Make sure to check texture import settings as well.

Unity - Manual: Material parameters

docs.unity3d.com

You need a post-effect as the effect reaches beyond the geometry of your neon sign. Make your neon sign uses a bright emissive texture. Then add the PostMagic plugin to your scene and enable Bloom. Tweak the plugin values, you can make it blur all almost-white pixels, which is what you want here. Note that PostMagic has terrible quality effects, because it's based on some very old effects burried in VaM, but its what we have and it can't be improved.

Thank you, much appreciated! And thanks for your guide for custom assets, which started this all.