Coding in Unity: Introduction to Shaders (Udemy.com)
Make your game look unique through image effects, shaders and custom lighting by learning Unity's ShaderLab language.
Created by: Jenny Hide
Last updated November 2020
What you will learn
- Program surface shaders - Unity's approach to making it easier to write lit shaders.
- Code lower level fragment and vertex shaders.
- Program post-processing images effects.
- Use your new knowledge to create your own, unique shaders and game feel.
- Understand Unity's ShaderLab and CG/HLSL.
- Write your own shaders for Unity's built-in Render Pipeline.
- Create your own custom lighting
How it compares
Against the other 183 rated Udemy courses in Unity on CourseDuck:
- Rating4.2 out of 5higher than 13% of them
- Reviews103#148 of 184 by number of reviews
- Length3.4 hoursshorter than 83% of them
- Last updatedNovember 2020earlier than 53% of them
Course Description
Learn the basic concepts and language you will need to program your own shaders and image effects for Unity's built-in render pipeline, for Unity 5 or above.
Learn and Understand Shaders with this Unity Course.
Learn about the different properties of a mesh that can be accessed and changed via a shader.
Write your own vertex and fragment, and surface shaders.
Create your own image effects.
Write custom lighting models.
Understand ShaderLab and CG/HLSL.
Make your game look unique using shaders.
In this course, you will learn the basics of programming shaders, from simple colour changes to whole screen image effects. We'll go through the different types of shader, Unity's quirks and in-built functions, and the different bits of code that make up a shader, before writing a full surface shader with a texture, normal map, metallic and emissive effects. We'll also look at writing a custom inspector for your shader. Once we've covered these basics, we'll look at creating an number of image effects, custom lighting models including cel shading, a sprite shader with a sway effect, and a dissolve effect.
A common criticism of Unity is that games made with the engine all have a similar look. Combat this by writing your own shaders rather than relying on Unity's inbuilt ones - learn how to improve the look and feel of your game.
By the end of this course, you will understand the basics of shader coding and will be able to create your own shaders. Source code is included to help you on your way.
This course is designed for people who can already use Unity and can program in C#, but who have no previous experience of programming shaders.
I present examples of increasing difficulty for each type of shader (surface, vertex/fragment and image effect) designed to help you to understand how shaders work so that you can be confident in creating your own effects.
For extra support, you can ask questions in the Q&A section, and I’ve provided the completed code examples for download in each Section. You’ll receive a certificate of completion once you finish the course.
Instructor Details
- 4.2 Rating
103 Reviews
Jenny Hide
I'm Jenny, a freelance and indie game developer with over 6 years of professional programming experience. I have a Masters degree in Physics with Astrophysics and a PhD in Quantum Information.
I've released a number of games and enjoy teaching and sharing the knowledge I've gained. I've worked with General Interactive Co. to code and design a winemaking tycoon game called Terroir and a mystery/adventure/management game called Chinatown Detective Agency. I'm also making Cultivate: Before Time, a farming meets mystery game with time travel and dinosaurs!
My Udemy courses are aimed at those learning game development - whether that's coding or game design.
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Reviews
By Константин Глущенко on 1/2/2022
Хотелось бы больше материала. Пока всё нормально. Комментировать можно медленнее. Трудно воспринимать на слух. Субтитры не помогают, так как они не распознают речь учителя. Разбираю все интуитивно.
By James Battersby on 5/24/2020
Good start explaining the concepts. Towards the end it became a how-to for particular effects which was less appealing to me as it doesn't explain the reasoning behind certain techniques. The issue for the grass in later versions of Unity can be fixed simply changing the pivot point on the sprite to the bottom as the problem occurred earlier than is found in the course. Good overall.
By Michael Hayter on 5/9/2020
Just started the course and so far a very in depth look. Presenters voice is a little mono-tone but she definitely knows what she is talking about and explains things well. Will definitely say this is not for beginners and you will need some knowledge of coding and unity to keep up.
By David Cérat on 3/18/2020
Bonne introduction. Beaucoup d'éléments déjà connus. Par contre les Surface Shaders peuvent reproduire les propriétés d'un vert frag shader contrairement à ce qui est mentionné dans l'introduction
By Fabien CHEVREY on 8/28/2019
didactic course First we redo the standard shader with our own fashion. using all All TxtureMap (Albedo, Metallic, Normal etc.) Then we apply Image effect as a PostEffect. The course is really intuitive. consider finishing it in two full day. I am at mid-course and I already have useful shaders.
By Quique Grases on 7/4/2019
I strongly recommend you that for the next tutorials, bear in mind to save them in FullHD insted of 2,5K (or more). Most of the people have monitors up to FullHD. This is not a problem when you're showing your code but it is when you're showing something related with Unity or its API. The fonts / texts are barely visible. Anyway, it's only a suggestion. About the course, it didn't fulfill my expectations because I was not a beginner, but if you want to learn the basics of shaders in Unity, this course is what you need. I think is perfect to introduce you to the wonderful world about shaders!!
By Vardan Kemechechyan on 7/2/2019
The speech speed is high for non-english speakers, the audio and video quality could be much better, especially the resolution of 720p is annoying. This review is written after the first chapter and can be edited later when I am done with the course
By Max C on 1/16/2019
I really like to be able to make shaders by code over the Graph Shader. Understanding how the logic works for these special effects is more important to me, it will allow to give me complete control over my games and will give me room for creativity, regardless of difficulty. I'm really happy a new section has been added, I considered the course to be too short for all the potential it can offer, and I hope a couple of more sections can be added in the future to keep increasing my knowledge. Thank you for that. My main concern would be that I need to understand more the "why" of things and take a few steps back to fully comprehend the programming language. Any reference or directions to "where to research further" to small but meaningful details is appreciated. I love the course to be short, direct to the point and for allowing me to know how to apply them into my objects. The more applications done, the better.
By Greg Broadbent on 12/5/2018
I really enjoyed taking this course and learned a lot. It is well presented and covers a good range of affects that can be achieved through writing custom shaders.
By Blas Mena on 6/13/2018
This is excellent, I'm learning a lot really fast. Enlightening really, a lot of stuff that was obscure became simple. You can tell the instructor knows a lot. Also, she treats you as an intelligent person, which is always appreciated.
Quality Score
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Overall Score : 84 / 100








