Translucent / Translucency Shader

Worked up a translucency shader for Unity based on DICE’s presentation.

Grab it here :slight_smile:

I think it may have been made already - can’t remember if I saw it on here or if it was a UDK version. But eh, yeah, enjoy :slight_smile:

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Wow this is very generous, great work! :slight_smile:

Updated first post with a better image.

Sorry if its an extremely noobish question, but how is this applied?

  1. In a text editor, paste the shader code.
  2. File > Save As > “Translucent.shader” (put this somewhere in your Unity project directory)
  3. In Unity, create a new material Assets > Rt-Click > Create > Material
  4. Select the new material
  5. In the Inspector change the “Shader” property of “New Material” to “Custom/Translucent”

Nice - thanks for sharing :slight_smile:

That Looks pretty!!

Wow, 4 years old and I didn’t know it! Thank you!

Thank you, I wanted this very effect just to play around with

Formidable, perfect for the skin of my caracter!
Merci beaucoup :wink:

This is the same as: Fast Subsurface Scattering in Unity (Part 1) - Alan Zucconi

except that one is better optimised for modern unity. Everyone here try that for perf gains :slight_smile:

This shader is still working perfectly 8 years later and I’m going to use it on my game.
Farfarer, wish me good luck, because I will reward you if I make some money out of it! :smile:

Wondering why it’s not on the Asset Store though!

After nearly 8 years since the thread has been created and the OP being inactive for two years, I guess we’ll never know or find out…

The HDRP has Translucency/Subsurface Scattering natively and there are also a few Assets in the Asset Store :slight_smile:

Ahah true… but you never know.

Thank you for the hint.
I guess I was doing the wrong search with “translucency”… they should add it in their descriptions!

The technique being used in the original post is from a 2011 Dice talk on the technique they used to fake skin and translucent materials for Battlefield 3.

Almost 10 years later it’s still a really decent cheap way of doing translucency. Specifically for faking light showing through a translucent object when that light is behind it.

What HDRP & about half of those assets on the store are doing is significantly more complex, but also much more accurate for replicating the look of skin, specifically the look of light being in front of a translucent object. For lights behind an object, what Unity’s Subsurface Scatter documentation refers to as “transmision”, the technique the HDRP uses is surprisingly similar to Dice’s with the addition of supporting shadows…

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Is there a way to make this work with URP ?