🇬🇧 Episode 4 - Dissolve Effect (Full) | EN (Or how to use Alpha Clip Threshold in Shader Graph)

🇬🇧 [Unity Shader Graph] Episode 4: Dissolve effect
With just a finger snap, Thanos caused the extermination of half of all life in the universe. We saw Black Panther, Scarlet Witch and the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man vanish in the air, one by one. These iconic characters disappear from the screen with thousands of pieces. That's the DISSOLVING effect.
An enemy turns into multiple particles and becomes invisible when getting shot. A monster was summoned out of nowhere. These are also the DISSOLVING effects.
DISSOLVING is one of the most popular visual effects in Computer Graphics. And there are many ways to implement it in a game. Today I will show you my method, which relies heavily on the Alpha property.
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ABALANCHE:
Full text: / shader-graph-p4-56741247
Facebook: / abalanchepage
Patreon: / abalanche
Donate: paypal.me/abalanche
Ủng hộ trà sữa: / tang-tra-sua-57938889
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00:00 INTRODUCTION
00:59 1.1. Alpha
02:11 1.2. Alpha Clip Threshold
04:30 1.3. Alpha Summary
05:10 2. HANDS-ON TIME
06:33 2.1. Preparation
06:48 2.2. Create a Shader Graph
06:59 2.3. Create a Material
07:18 2.4. Sample the Albedo texture
07:46 2.5. Use the Noise texture as Alpha
08:27 2.6. Control the Alpha Clip Threshold externally
11:14 2.7. ADVANCED: GLOWING EDGE
13:23 2.7.1. Calculate the Edge Threshold
13:49 2.7.2. Convert Alpha to the mixing ratio
15:07 2.7.3. Blend Edge Color
17:47 2.8. ADVANCED: SUB-GRAPH
23:33 2.9. ADVANCED: DISSOLVING DIRECTION
25:47 3. GOOGLE TIME
29:51 4. SUMMARY
30:41 5. MORE
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ASSETS / TOOLS:
Playing card: sketchfab.com/3d-models/gezin...
Hi-poly fence: sketchfab.com/3d-models/barbe...
Low-poly tree: sketchfab.com/3d-models/lowpo...
Corona beer bottle: sketchfab.com/3d-models/coron...
Soccer ball: sketchfab.com/3d-models/footb...
Goal net: sketchfab.com/3d-models/footb...
Hanging Hourglass: sketchfab.com/3d-models/antiq...
Old window: sketchfab.com/3d-models/old-w...
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REFERENCES:
Tatsuya Koyama's Demo 042: • Dissolve Effect Demo (...
FFVII Remake: • Final Fantasy 7 Remake...
Genshin Impact: • Genshin Impact Gamepla...
Morgan Macguire's Fast Colored Transparency: casual-effects.blogspot.com/20...
Inigo Quilez's Domain Warping: www.iquilezles.org/www/articl...
Add node: docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com...
Saturate node: docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com...
Mebius Box: mebiusbox.github.io/contents/E...
#abalanche #unity #shader #graph #shadergraph #unityshadergraph #patreon #full #dissolve #effect #alpha #alphaclipthreshold

[@zakhazakharia4561]

I've just found this recently. Your video is so beautifully made. Thank you very much for the effort explaining complex things to be this simple.

[@Abalanche]

Glad it was helpful!

[@sig3363]

Damn, what a well structured and well paced video, amazing. This is beyond good!

[@Abalanche]

Thank you

[@batnseyrek7325]

i took all i need in the first 5 min thank you!

[@Abalanche]

Not sure if it's a compliment or a complaint but thank you very much for watching

[@DarioVicentini97]

Covering the ember particles in detail would made it the best tutorial out there, but thanks anyway for the info!

[@Abalanche]

I did it in the end of the video :) Thanks for the comment

[@dracofells5390]

@@Abalanche EDIT: I was really rude to those guy, turns out he's a stand-up dude and I was wrong to do it. I deleted some of my disrespect but I'll leave the rest here because I feel like it'd look weird if he's just talking to himself in comments. Moral of the story be kind to others especially when you're upset. No you didnt. You didn't even scratch the surface of it. I have no idea where to even start with it, I googled it and all I came up with is that I probably have to code my own material property binder(which isn't covered here) and then connect that to the material (oh yeah I'm sure thats easy) then maybe we can get it working. The amount of depth in those two tasks alone is enough to warrant more to a tutorial. This is a great in depth tutorial that covers a 5 minute material effect. Which means its bloated trash where the only thing of actual value in it you neglect to explain. If you'd said there's a tutorial on your patreon that would be one thing. But nah, you're selling "custom scripts" on your patreon like an ass while being vague about the fact that these would even be included. That sucks.

[@Abalanche]

I have no time for all the details. It's in the full blog post. Moreover that part is put in the Google Time section for a reason. Custom Material Property Binder is mentioned in the video and provided in the download package already

[@dracofells5390]

​@@Abalanche So your defense here is "I'm lazy," ok cool dude that doesn't cut it. 1. Google time is an obsolete or awful section. You have absolutely no reason to not provide links to what you googled if it exists at all. In my research of the same topic I've found a DRAFT for an unfinished unity documentation page on how to write a custom material property binding and a couple forums that lead to absolutely zero results close to what you have created. Additionally this is the only video with such a visual result which likely means you are one of few individuals to even accomplish this. What do you do with this knowledge? Do you share it, empower the community? Sell it as a unique tutorial of its own? No, you sell it as an obfuscated download like an ass. 2. The custom Material Property Binder is hardly mentioned at all, your exact words are "Fortunately we can do that with property binding mechanics in vfx graph and the exposed blackboard properties of the shader graph." Tell me what does this provide other than incorrect keywords, and literally no detail at all. To even find out you need to possibly script a custom binding I need to go into unity and fiddle with the property binder until i realize the settings you use just don't exist. I have to activate experimental settings and google search just to find NOTHING only to know that it doesn't natively exist. Do you realize how frustrating that is? How much time that wastes. 3. Is it in the full blog post? I don't have any proof of that unless i pay. Why should i pay when the video provided as evidence intentionally obscures the methodology you used as much as possible. It would have taken a 5 second clip for you to mention "Its tricky, i had to create a custom script for this" but you aren't specific about what required custom scripts. You aren't specific about anything with your method of doing this. You hid it on purpose. 4. Anybody looking here who wants a method that actually works here's a quick solution for you. You can go to Preferences and enable the VFX experimental features: experimental operaters/blocks. Now in your VFX graph make one of the systems a mesh particle, this is your new mesh sadly as i have no easier solution. For the Material create the material in this video but be sure to go into the graph settings of the shader graph and click the box that says "Support VFX Graph". Now for the mesh particle select that material, boom you should see all the parameters you had available in the material in your vfx graph. This is kind of an annoying method as you now need to use a particle for spawning a mesh, but it works, you have synchronized settings between the two quick and easy. Now just make a separate system for the dissolve effect, and boom you're done. I have a job in the game dev industry but miraculously i somehow found the time to share these details. To everyone except this guy I wish you all the best. To this guy in particular I genuinely feel sorry for anyone that's met you. I'd say delete this tutorial but people need an example of how not to make one.

[@Abalanche]

That's the point of Google Time. I did not make a tutorial, I used the tutorial to talk about basic Computer Graphics and I have repeated it multiple times. Nowadays you can find almost everything on the Internet and what you need is the proper keywords. I provided them. Im so sorry if you didnt find the solution you want from this video. But from the beginning, it's about how to use Alpha in shader, not about connecting VFX Graph and Shader Graph. If you want a guy to tells you how to do everything from the beginning to the end, sorry Im not that guy. I just want to share the foundational knowledge to help you expand your knowledge even wider by your own effort.

[@livtod15]

damn, this is cool

[@Abalanche]

Thanks

[@user-kq9ud4vv7i]

BEST!

[@Abalanche]

Thanks for your support

[@huycuongphan1063]

đang tìm hiểu effect này thì gặp ngay clip của a, cảm ơn a nhé 😢

[@Abalanche]

Cảm ơn bạn nhé

[@Mirdyn]

That was a great, really great video! I do have a question though, if anyone knows the answer I would appreciate. How can I use the same shader in multiple objects, and have different alpha values? To summarize I'm trying to use it with a particle effect, and I want the particles to dissolve with their lifetimes.

[@Abalanche]

You can create multiple materials using the same shader.

[@pqhungpqhung3252]

Long time no see

[@Abalanche]

Is it worth the wait :) ?

[@pqhungpqhung3252]

@@Abalanche yes, absolutely!

[@Abalanche]

Such a relief to hear that

[@maximmandrov1570]

good afternoon, the lesson is good, but the topic of particles is not described, I would like to know in more detail how to implement particles in conjunction with textural disappearance

[@Abalanche]

As you can tell, the video is already long. And the main topic is about how to manipulate Alpha and how to use it for the Dissolve shader. Thats why I didnt include more information, leaving the viewers room to explore. In case you want to know my method of synchronizing particles system with the shader, I'll tell you in details without hiding anything

[@maximmandrov1570]

@@Abalanche Thank you for the answer, I would really like to know how to do synchronization

[@Abalanche]

1. In order to sync the parameters Alpha, EdgeThickness and the Noise texture from shader to VFX Graph, I created a custom VFX Property Binder (docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.visualeffectgraph@8.1/api/UnityEngine.VFX.Utility.VFXPropertyBinder.html). They're simple, just get the values from the shader and make it exposed, then you can select it from the VFX Inspector like the built-in ones. . 2. In order to make the fire embers emitted only from the burning edge, I have to fake it. In fact, the particles are spawned everywhere from a Point Cache baked from the card itself. From their spawning positions, we know the UV coordinates and the corresponding Alpha from the Noise texture. Combining with the Alpha and the EdgeThickness values passed from the shader, we can easily determine if a particle is spawned in the Edge area or not. For the ones not spawned from the burning edge, we can simply kill it or set its lifetime to 0, so that it will disappear immediately on spawning. . That's it. Let me know if there's anything unclear

[@minhtan1675]

anh ơi, việc spawn VFX ở rìa e làm bữa giờ mà không có kết quả. Không biết anh có thể cho em xin nội dung hay keyword hoặc file packet để em tham khảo được không ạ? Em cảm ơn anh trước ạ.

[@Abalanche]

Việc spawn được particle ở rìa khá khó với newbie mà sự khác biệt là không thực sự đáng kể với người xem bình thường. Vậy nên em có thể tạm bỏ qua phần đó để tập trung vào các tính năng khác có độ ưu tiên cao hơn. Quy tắc Pareto 80/20.

[@Abalanche]

Nếu 1 tuần sau em vẫn còn hứng thú với kỹ thuật này thì cứ để lại email nhé, anh sẽ gửi thêm thông tin cho

[@minhtan1675]

@@Abalanche dạ vâng ạ :3