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
One texture on ordinary particles	Texture or Sprite Material
Common VFX looks (flipbook, dissolve, distortion, soft edges, rims, decals) without a graph	Kila 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

Kila Material 2.2.8

Start a new effect with Kila Material: its modules and presets cover the common looks, and it reads per-particle data without a graph. When you need logic it has no module for, export it as a Shader Graph and continue there. Shader Graph 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
• Kila Material
• 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