Shader information? (Bump, normal etc.)

Unity Engine
1

Hey there…

I’m looking for some information on shaders.

Wich kind is mostly used and what does the diferent shaders do? Im totaly lost when it comes to terms like bump, normal, per pixel, parallax -mapping.

I would also like to know how easy this is handled in unity.

2

You might want to have a look at our Shader Reference:

http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Components/Built-in%20Shader%20Guide.html

It has an overview at the top and details for each of the built-in shaders at the bottom. If you skim through a few of them you should get a pretty good idea.

3

This answers everyting. Thanks alot.

And may I say your documentation is very very good.

Edit: One more question…

As I understand Unity is capable of generating Bump and normal maps from souce image itself. So I dont have to use time on that in the first place (only edit if something needs to be changed) am I right?

4

Unity can create a normal map from a bumpmap (i.e. the grayscale “height” texture). So if you have that, just enable the option in texture’s import settings.

Another common case is when a normal map is generated from two models, a low poly one (for realtime use) and a high poly one (used only to generate the normal map). In that case the software you use to model the high polygon one probably has the capability already (e.g. apps like ZBrush, MudBox, …).