Skip to main content

Introduction

What is Shader Editor?​

Shader Editor is a web-based visual programming tool for creating shader materials and effects.

Instead of writing shader programs directly, in Shader Editor you construct shader graphs. These graphs comprise a network of nodes connected together with edges. Shader Editor will convert a completed graph to the equivalent shader program for use at runtime.

Example​

For example, the following effect animates multiple surface normal maps and combines them with special effect lighting:

sample effect

The effect is made up of various graphs, including the following one. This graph takes care of unpacking the normals in a normal map:

sample graph

Shader Editor will convert this graph into a shader program, which is executed on a GPU at runtime:

void func_unpackNormal(in vec3 usr_rawNormal, out vec3 usr_unpackedNormal) {
    float var_ = float(2);
    vec3 var_0 = vec3(var_,var_,var_);
    vec3 var_1 = var_0 * usr_rawNormal;
    float var_2 = float(-1);
    vec3 var_3 = vec3(var_2,var_2,var_2);
    vec3 var_4 = var_1 + var_3;
    usr_unpackedNormal = var_4;
}

Next steps​

Learn more about Shader Editor in general in the Overview section.

Find out more about the window layout in the Window Layout section.