Distance controlled transparency

[Amerio.Stephane]

Hello,

Is it possible to have an alpha-blended material whose transparency multiplier/transparency pow are controlled by the distance to the camera?

• Can we write an expression in the surface material parameters with the camera distance as an input?
• Or should I go with a new shader? (but how to get the eye distance?)

(note: this is for a loooong cable material. I tried using the LOD fade but the result is not convincing, the transparency+wire inflation turns out really better in the distance)

Thanks!

Edited July 17, 2020 by Amerio.Stephane

[silent]

Hi Stephane,

You can control all of the material parameters via code (C++ / C# / UnigineScript), so you simply need to write a custom logic that will change transparency multiplier based on some calculated value. No additional shader is required.

[Amerio.Stephane]

Hi Silent,

I already though about this, but I fear this could be too costly (not tested, though). I have more than 10.000 cables. Won't adding a component/update for each of them be too much?

(I'll try, nothing beats manual timing in the end)

Thanks!

[silent]

If these meshes are identical you can use MeshCluster to increase the performance a bit. You also can perform visibility checks per object group and spread the 10.000 objects update for 60 or more frames to reduce the overall peak load.

[ulf.schroeter]

Sounds like some fragment-shader-based approach could both provide muuch better quality (per-pixel distance fade) and performance (batching 10000 instances using same cable material into much fewer batches)