Preferably, Unity would give users the tools to avoid the following two workarounds:
1. Having to build a custom node for getting light information (c.q. main light direction) 2. Having to output the custom lit values as the PBR Emission value.
From the article:
I’ve seen hints of this issue in different topics on the forum, but could not find a stance on whether this is considered an important use case by Unity and whether it will make it into Shader Graph.
I would imagine yes given how many different threads touch on this. Users want it, the post by @cirocontinisio shows unity know its wanted, and I am sure the reason such a node has not arrived is it is a more complex issue and they want to make sure the node they supply gets it right.
For now you can use the node by @cirocontinisio and then make adjustments as he mentions in the comments on that article, at which point it will work.
I asked this in the [main LWRP thread]( Feedback Wanted: Lightweight Render Pipeline page-5#post-3981121) as well, I imagine the current solution is exactly that: use emission channel or build custom lighting from ground up with unlit base, otherwise it will involve changing core shaders.
(ShaderGraph_ExampleLibrary repo might give you some nice idea to kick start custom lighting, depending on your use case)
I’ve been working with those Light Nodes, they open up quite a few options!
However, what I haven’t been able to do is create shaders that have just a slightly modified light function compared to PBR, and have all the other shader magic and shadows intact.
In Surface shader, one could copy the Lambert or Blinn-Phong lighting function, make a few modifications, and plug in the modified function using #pragma surface.
Even in the standard shader, it’s possible to replace just the BRDF by defining UNITY_BRDF_PBS.
The Feedback page has been replaced with the forums, so I suppose I will raise my hand here and agree that custom lighting is a fundamental feature that Unity games I’ve worked on/am working on require (specifically toon shading). Our artists are very excited about the shader graph, but it seems practically experimental, until the LWRP and HDRP stabilize (for those without time to delve much into SRP). Once the Shader Graph can be used without dependecies on preview tech, I imagine more people will take a look at it, and then ask for custom lighting.
Not sure if this is related but I found myself here looking for a way to change the light falloff used by the LWRP. I was thinking there’d be something I could do with a ShaderGraph, but what would really be helpful is an option on the Light component itself that lets you change the type of falloff per light (Inverse Square, Inverse Square (No Range Attenuation), Legacy, Linear), like what’s described here: Unity - Manual: Custom fall-off
