Changing Standard Shader Emissive Values At Runtime

Unity Engine
1

I previously had my objects simply turning off (exampleObject.active = false) when turning the objects state to on or off, but now that it is all working, I am looking for something a little more graphically appealing, and acceptable for a game.
I changed the line to this (exampleObject.GetComponent().material.SetFloat(“_EmissionScaleUI”, 0.0f):wink: in order to turn the emission value up or down (to turn a series of lights on or off), but it doesn’t work; no errors but it doesn’t do anything.

To clarify, I am trying to change the Emission “brightness” value expressed as a float on the right of the highlighted section in the image below.
Ref: Unity - Manual: Emission

554×805 80.1 KB

My full code (entire script) has been posted below, in the hopes someone may be able to spot something wrong I, and the Unity debugger cannot.

It may be a simple syntax issue, or the parameter name may have changed, but I have revieved an error each time I attempt to open the Standard Shader code, so I cannot see for myself.

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class Gate : MonoBehaviour
{

    public GameObject[] lights;
    public Switch[] switches;
    private int lightCount;

    public int switchCount;
    private bool[] switchState;//holds previous state to compare to new/current state
    private bool changed;//a state has changed
    private int index = 0;

    void Awake()
    {
        switchState = new bool[switchCount];
    }

    void Start()
    {
        for (index = 0; index < lights.Length; index++)
        {
            //lights[index].active = false;
            lights [index].GetComponent<Renderer> ().material.SetFloat ("_EmissionScaleUI", 0.0f);

        }
    }

    void Update()
    {
        //check to see if any switch state has changed
        changed = false;
        for (index = 0; index < switchCount; index++)
        {
            if (switches[index].state != switchState[index])
            {
                changed = true;
                switchState[index] = switches[index].state;
                break;
            }
        }

        //if a state has changed 'index' will hold which one
        if (changed)
        {
            for (int lightCounter = 0; lightCounter < lights.Length; lightCounter++)
            {
                if (switches[index].lights[lightCounter] == true)//set in switches therefore act on this item
                {
                    bool lightIsActive = false;
                    //lights[lightCounter].active = !lights[lightCounter].active;
                    lightIsActive = !lightIsActive;
                    //lights[lightCounter].GetComponent<Renderer>().material.SetFloat("_EmissionScaleUI",2.0f) = lights[lightCounter].GetComponent<Renderer>().material.SetFloat("_EmissionScaleUI",0.0f);

                    if (lightIsActive) {
                        lights [lightCounter].GetComponent<Renderer> ().material.SetFloat ("_EmissionScaleUI", 2.0f);
                    }
                    else if (!lightIsActive)
                    {
                        lights [lightCounter].GetComponent<Renderer> ().material.SetFloat ("_EmissionScaleUI", 0.0f);
                    }
                }
            }

        }
    }
}
2

I never used the emissionScaleUI. Instead I just set the color to black for no emiision.

material.SetColor( "_EmissionColor",  Color.black);

and in your case set it to 2 * white for your emission

material.SetColor( "_EmissionColor",  2f * Color.white);
1 Like
3

Unfortunately, I am using lights[lightCounter].active = !lights[lightCounter].active; in my code, which seems to refuse anything but those values, so booleans, and anything else doesn’t work.

I think I may need a needlessly complicated solution for this…:frowning:

4

If people are coming here looking for how to change Emission values at runtime in code, I think this thread has all the best answers clearly laid out. :slight_smile: