A Little Suite of 2D Shaders

In the previous chapters, we talked about shader performance, and we took quite a meta look at how technical artists can optimize rendering in a Unity project. These are obviously crucial skills to have as an advanced shader creator, but they’re often not the most enjoyable part of the job.

Rather, a shader artist wants to create shaders, right?

Well, good news! In this chapter and the upcoming ones, we will go through little galleries of shaders and learn various techniques with a hands-on approach by studying a variety of common use cases. Ideally, these examples will serve both as references for your future projects and primers for more experimentation on your part.

And to begin with, let’s discuss 2D shaders! To do so, we’ll talk about the following topics:

• Implementing color-swap, hue-shift, saturate, negate, and pixelate effects
• Making 2D outlines
• Having fun with overlay textures, dissolves, and holograms...