Toon Shader in Unity Using a Shader Graph with Custom Lighting! ✔️ 2020.3 | Game Dev Tutorial

✔️ Works in 2020.1 ➕ 2020.2 ➕ 2020.3 🩹 For 2020.2 and .3:
► When you create a shader graph, set the material setting to "Unlit"
► The gear menu on Custom Function nodes is now in the graph inspector
► Editing properties must be done in the graph inspector instead of the blackboard
► Add a normalize node after view direction to fix a bug in certain Unity versions.

Toon shaders, also called cel shaders, create a cartoon-like style with segmented shading. In this video, I'll show you how to create these shaders in Unity using Shader Graph. Features include: diffuse and specular lighting, color textures, shading ramp textures, shadows, and multiple light sources. The custom lighting techniques can be used in a variety of shaders down the line!

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📚 Reference scripts

✨Follow up videos

⏲️ Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:00 Project setup
2:10 Simple (diffuse) lighting
5:39 Shading ramp textures
7:54 Color textures
8:57 Shadows
12:10 Specular lighting
14:59 Additional light sources
19:31 Wrap up and credits

🎖️ Credits and references:

#GameDev #IndieDev #Unity

[hamishpaget]

For anyone getting an error saying "Invalid conditional expression"
instead of:
#if SHADERGRAPH_PREVIEW
It has to be:
#if defined(SHADERGRAPH_PREVIEW)

[gamethingstuff]

Followed another tutorial that massively overcomplicated everything and didn't get the desired result and then I watch this one and it's so simple. Great job man

[sam]

Just want to thank you for breaking this down so well. As someone who is learning this stuff, it is really difficult sometimes to understand what people are doing in tutorials and why they might add certain nodes. Your tutorial is incredibly well explained and easy to understand. This level of detail is very much appreciated, keep it up! :)

[kilanlarsen]

I searched through a fair number of toon shader tutorials but this is the only one I found that properly addressed dynamic lighting from point/spot lights in the scene. Hands down the best shader and I'm extremely grateful for the information - you've earned a sub good sir

[CaveHeroesofficial]

This is by far the best and cleanest tutorial I've ever seen.

[madifoldstudio]

One of the best Toon Shader explanations there are (including the Open Projects one that is a drag).

[tbdtandres]

I'm going through all your tutorials and they are SO GOOD, I've learned so much, THANK YOU

[durgam_sumerian]

Wow, didn't know there are such free cool tutorials with rich info & explanation like this one, well, Subscribed.

[cortlandia]

I've spent the past few hours trying to find a tutorial that works and this one does! Tysm

[kayohwai]

After completing the tutorial, I added a small bit extra onto the graph. Since I didn't want everything toon shaded to be shiny, I threw in an extra bool ("Matte"), and a Branch. If Matte is true, it cuts out the Add for the shine branch. If Matte is false, it feeds through the full branch.

[nicolasL]

Awesome tutorial man, thanks a lot, keep up the good work!

[FistFlameful]

Thanks for the tutorial! This was really helpful for learning about custom lighting and shaders!

[NathanPrince]

Thank you sir I have been trying to get good looking shadows for a long time in URP and cascades never worked for me. Until I found you lovely vids and the shadow keywords fixed my problem. thanks and you get a like and subscribe for life :)

[jeriswatching]

Liked and subbed. You saved me where Unity's own tutorial didn't.

[VyvyanTheGreat]

Phenomenal tutorial. Thank you SO much!

[NedMakesGames]

Hi everyone! Thank you for all your comments! Also, if you're using a version after Unity 2020.2, please check the top of the video description for fixes!

[lesarch]

This is an amazing tutorial! Thank you for this!

[dennisj]

Thank you for sharing your knowledge! Hope you have a great day :)

[poisonouspurple]

For everyone who runs into the 'Invalid conditional expression' error, here is the solution:
simply write
#if defined(SHADERGRAPH_PREVIEW)
instead of
#if SHADERGRAPH_PREVIEW


Hope this works for you :D

[bencollom]

Since I ran into this issue:

When creating custom shader - Error: wrong file type, must be .hlsl:
Your windows directory may not be showing file extensions, and your text file is Lighting.hlsl.txt. In your windows directory, click "View" up at the top, then check "Show file extensions." now you can rename your file to Lighting.hlsl