[Shader Jam] Elemental

Fengol

This is an experiment in getting everyone to write a shader and share knowledge.

Elyaradine said:

In the shader workshop, we didn't really have time to do exercises, so the only thing we did was that outline shader, and I think that some folks were itching to do more dynamic things using the _Time parameters. I think a pretty cool, noob-friendly challenge would be to create an effect that plays on a simple primitive, like a plane or quad.

What the actual effect is could be some sort of elemental kind of thing, like fire or ice, or glistening sand (a la Journey), or something that can somehow blend between two states (e.g. "clean" vs "corrupted/aged")... lots of possibilities! :)

Starting today (5 July) until the end of 1 August you have 4 weeks to write a shader that applies an elemental nature (earth, air, fire, water, spirit) to a simple primitive e.g. a plane, sphere, cube.

Your shader must use a time component and must not involve player interaction like moving the camera or other scene objects.

Post your work on the forums with a title prefix [Elemental Shader Jam]

Tell us your intentions, post screenshots and share your script, textures and other inputs along with instructions to configure it (in Unity3D).

All the usual blurb for the forum competitions and jams apply.

Fengol

Metal comes from earth, electricity from spirit. Make something awesome!

Denzil

Maybe I should try this. I know nothing about shaders though!

skinklizzard

where's heart, and the blue man in spandex trying to clean up pollution ?
on more serious note I'll probably give this a bash.

creative630

Awesome! Is this primarily shaders that work in Unity? Or would using something like https://www.shadertoy.com/ be cool too?

Edit: There is also GLSL Sandbox

Elyaradine

I don't think it matters what you use, as long as you're learning. The UDK/Unreal4 has a pretty sweet node-based shader editor too, that's pretty darn powerful.

Fengol

Yip, work wherever; just share your results and how you did it

Fengol

I see nearly everyone seems to be ignoring the requirement for a time component. I'm going to take it out of the jam requirement because it looks like everyone is learning anyway!

Chippit

Fengol said:

I see nearly everyone seems to be ignoring the requirement for a time component. I'm going to take it out of the jam requirement because it looks like everyone is learning anyway!

I also think the 'no interaction' thing is a bit limiting. A lot of the nicest effects in CG have view dependant terms, and they're the kind of thing you'll only see by moving the camera. I think view dependant terms should always be fine.