Shaders, Materials, and GPU Data

Shader Graph and GPU streams 2.2.0

Photon separates what an emitter draws from how its pixels are shaded. A Material selects textures, render state, and a shader. Shader Graph builds that shader visually. GPU Data supplies values that change for every particle or trail point.

The real particle graph is open beside its live Scene, Material resources, Inspector, and Timeline.

Choose an Authoring Path

Need	Use
Texture, blend, depth, and ordinary particles	Texture or Sprite Material
Visual per-pixel logic without GLSL	Shader Graph Material
Existing Core Shader JSON/VSH/FSH	Custom Shader Material
Scene-color or full-screen processing	Fullscreen Graph and Render Graph
Per-particle animation inside the shader	Additional GPU Data
Values controlled by Timeline or Java	Custom Data streams

Shader Graph is the preferred path for new effects because it declares its required streams and works across Photon render contexts. Hand-written shaders remain useful when porting a shader or when graph nodes cannot express an operation.

In This Section

• Material System
• Shader Graph: Getting Started
• Stages, Functions, and Subgraphs
• Core Node Reference
• Photon Node Reference
• Custom Shader Material
• Hand-written Core Shaders and ExtendedShader
• Built-in Uniform and Sampler Reference
• Vertex Formats and GPU Instancing
• Additional GPU Data