How To Write A Custom URP Shader With DOTS Instancing Support

I wanted to enhance the look of my boids BatchRendererGroup sample with more suitable meshes instead of cubes. For that I decided to use a custom shader with some simple procedural vertex animation. Without proper documentation available it took me quite a while to figure out how to add DOTS instancing support to it, since it's required for BRG. So I am sharing the solution so you don’t have to spend your time.

https://gamedev.center/how-to-write-a-custom-urp-shader-with-dots-instancing-support/

#instancing #dots #brg #shader #rendering

An attempt on replicating 3 (Moving, Gliding, Swimming) Genshin Impact Movement Systems.

https://github.com/Wafflus/unity-genshin-impact-movement-system

#movement #charactercontroller #genshin

Simple selection for busy scenes in Unity

https://github.com/vertxxyz/NSelection

#editortool #selection

Game Maths — Dot Product

Personally I don't implement stuff that requires deep math knowledge in a day-to-day work, but once in a while every game developer faces tasks when you wish you knew the math. And this task could be solved faster and without dirty workarounds if you knew the math behind the required functionality. This post gives one example of a dot product usage, but I liked more another old article on this topic, which I will share here next. So check out both to get better understanding.

https://medium.com/nerd-for-tech/game-maths-dot-product-d3f063192cd6

#math #dotproduct #3dmath

Linear algebra for game developers

Old, but gold series I talked about in my previous post. I find it the most simple article on this topic out there. It doesn't even make me wanna sleep when reading it.

The part that contains a dot product denoscription and example: http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/07/linear-algebra-for-game-developers-part-2/

Other posts in the series:
Part 1: http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/07/linear-algebra-for-game-developers-part-1/

Part 3: http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/07/Linear-algebra-for-game-developers-part-3

#math #3dmath

Use the new checkbox "Project Settings - Parallel Import" to significantly increase assets import speed starting from 2021 LTS.

https://youtu.be/fxqhE-h6ucM

#editor #tip #import

Template shader to use as a guide to create Universal Pipeline ready shaders provided by the lead of URP at Unity. This shader works with Universal Render Pipeline 7.1.x and above.

https://gist.github.com/phi-lira/225cd7c5e8545be602dca4eb5ed111ba

#urp #shader

Shader Tutorial: SDFs

How to create unlit 2d shapes using SDF functions

https://www.patreon.com/posts/64440772

#sdf #shader

Customize your memory use with Unity 2021 LTS | Unity Blog

Unity has different ways to allocate native memory, two of them are:
The bucket allocator, which groups small allocations of similar sizes into shared blocks of memory. It’s generally very fast and widely used, but it has a hard coded limit to how big it can grow.
There is also a dynamic heap allocator which is slower, but handles more cases.
Ori developers needed better performance on Switch and modification of the bucket allocator size helped them reach stutter free gameplay. At that time it wasn't accessible to everyone and required source code modification. Starting from 2021 LTS it became customizable.

https://blog.unity.com/technology/customize-your-memory-use-with-unity-2021-lts

#memory #optimization

Some DOTS Utilities: NativeCounter and NativeSum

Provides functionality to count and calculate sum in parallel jobs

https://coffeebraingames.wordpress.com/2021/10/24/some-dots-utilities-nativecounter-and-nativesum/

#dots #jobs #nativecounter #nativesum

5 ways to draw an outline

An in-depth post on different ways to draw an outline with examples when different approaches work well or fall flat

https://alexanderameye.github.io/notes/rendering-outlines/

#outline #shader

Use an easier way to drag references between objects: right click - Properties or Alt+P instead of locking the inspector window and opening the additional one.

https://youtube.com/shorts/9Z78hOHk7JM

#editor #tip

My take on shaders: Stylized water shader – Harry Alisavakis

A very detailed denoscription of a stylized water shader with foam and ripples

https://halisavakis.com/my-take-on-shaders-stylized-water-shader/

#shader #water #ripples

Stylized VFX in Unity. Part 1: Step, Smoothstep, Dissolve

A detailed denoscription of the dissolve effect and how step, smoothstep, and remap functions work.

https://torchinsky.me/stylized-vfx-unity-01/

#shadergraph #shader #dissolve #particlesystem

Stylized VFX in Unity. Part 2: Custom Vertex Streams and Custom Data

How to use Custom Vertex Streams and Custom Data in a shader for particle systems

https://torchinsky.me/stylized-vfx-unity-02/

#shadergraph #customvertexstream #customdata #particlesystem

Use style transitions to animate a menu with UI Toolkit

https://gamedev-resources.com/use-style-transitions-to-animate-a-menu/

#uitoolkit

Seamless - Free Node-Based Procedural Texture Builder

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/textures-materials/seamless-procedural-texture-builder-219833

#texture #assets #texturebuilder

Selection Groups - a package made by Unity that provides a more convenient workflow in the editor by allowing to group a number of GameObjects under a common name.
This way, we can do operations on these groups, instead of individual GameObjects.

https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/com.unity.selection-groups

#editortools #selectiongroups

The Operation Result Pattern

https://blog.upperdine.dev/the-operation-result-pattern

#pattern #operationresult

The Worst Bug Ever—Randomly Losing Your Best Players

A great example of solving a critical issue in production with Unity InApp Purchasing. I admire the engineering approach to problem solving the author has shown.
Unit testing third party code to reproduce the issue leads to stunning results. Even Uncle Bob wrote about it a long time ago in his book "Clean Code". Of course it also shows how good infrastructure is important, possibility to get data like real receipts helped to run these tests. And I am pretty sure they store a lot of different stuff that would help to detect issues in various areas of the game, not only IAPs.

https://medium.com/pocket-gems/the-worst-bug-ever-randomly-losing-your-best-players-c4c5d25048c4

#iap #debug

Unity: Avoid Custom "ENABLE_X" Preprocessor Symbols

The problem begins when removing custom symbols which are prefixed with “ENABLE_”.
Unity will not remove custom symbols prefixed with “ENABLE_” from the .csproj files!

https://www.brutalhack.com/blog/unity-avoid-enable-preprocessor-symbols/

#tip #preprocessor