Vertex Animation Shader

Options relevant to the orels1/Standard Vertex Animation shader

Vertex Animation shader aims to provide you with a simple way to add simple animations to your meshes, with support for GPU Instancing. Which can be very handy for things like power-ups or collectibles in the world, allowing them all to run in a single batch and avoid the use of animators.

This shader has a couple of different effects which are documented separately below. All of them can be combined together.

Spin

A simple spin effect with configurable Axis and Origin point

Spin effect options

• Spinning: Controls the application of spin effect. Options are: None/Local/World, where Local and World controls the reference space used for applying the effect
• Spin Axis: The axis of spin in Local/World space based on the Spinning setting. Where something like X: 1, Y: 0, Z: 0 will spin the object along the X axis in Local/World space, and X: 0, Y: 1, Z: 0 will spin along the Y
• Normalize Axis: Enables force-normalization of the Spin Axis. This is useful if you want to make sure that the axis is always kept as a unit-vector to avoid any mesh distortions
• Spin Origin Point: The origin point of the spin, by default is set to 0,0,0, which is the object's pivot point. Note that the origin point is always applied in local space
• Spin Speed: Controls the speed of the spin. Negative values reverse the spin direction
• Phase Offset: Controls the offset of the animation, allows you to specify per-material time offsets
• Position Offset: Enables the animation offset based on object's position
• Position Offset Axis: Controls the axis which is considered for position offset. Options are: XYZ/X/Y/Z, where XYZ uses object's position as is, while individual axis will only consider the world-space X/Y/Z axis position. All other objects with the same X/Y/Z value will have the same animation offset
• Position Offset Scale: Controls the strength of the position-based animation offset effect

Float

Applies a floating effect to the object

Float Effect Options

• Floating: Controls the application of float effect. Options are: None/Local/World, where Local and World controls the reference space used for applying the effect
• Float Axis: The axis of floating in Local/World space based on the Floating setting. Where something like X: 1, Y: 0, Z: 0 will float the object along the X axis in Local/World space, and X: 0, Y: 1, Z: 0 will float along the Y
• Normalize Axis: Enables force-normalization of the Float Axis. This is useful if you want to make sure that the axis is always kept as a unit-vector to avoid any mesh distortions
• Float Speed: Controls the speed of the float effect
• Float Amount: Controls the amount of movement applied Two Way: Determines if the object should only move in the positive direction along the specified Float Axis, purely a convenience function
• Phase Offset: Controls the offset of the animation, allows you to specify per-material time offsets
• Position Offset: Enables the animation offset based on object's position
• Position Offset Axis: Controls the axis which is considered for position offset. Options are: XYZ/X/Y/Z, where XYZ uses object's position as is, while individual axis will only consider the world-space X/Y/Z axis position. All other objects with the same X/Y/Z value will have the same animation offset
• Position Offset Scale: Controls the strength of the position-based animation offset effect

Scale

Applies various scaling effects to the object

• Scaling: Controls the application of the scaling effect. Options are: None/Uniform/Flow

Uniform

Applies uniform scaling to the object

Scale Effect Options

• Scale Speed: The speed of the scaling effect
• Scale Amount: Controls the amount of scaling applied
• Phase Offset: Controls the offset of the animation, allows you to specify per-material time offsets
• Position Offset: Enables the animation offset based on object's position
• Position Offset Axis: Controls the axis which is considered for position offset. Options are: XYZ/X/Y/Z, where XYZ uses object's position as is, while individual axis will only consider the world-space X/Y/Z axis position. All other objects with the same X/Y/Z value will have the same animation offset
• Position Offset Scale: Controls the strength of the position-based animation offset effect

Flow

Applies a flowing scale effect that scales a region of a mesh along its UVs or Local Position

Scale Flow Effect Options

• Flow Based On: Controls the source of Flow animation
  • UV: Uses UV coordinates to determine the flow animation
  • Local Position: Uses local position to determine the flow of animation
• Flow UV Channel: Only visible if Flow Based On is set to UV. Controls the UV channel used for flow animation
• Flow Axis: Controls the axis of flow animation
  • X/Y/Z: Sets the channel to be used for flow animation. Z is only available if Flow Based On is set to Local Position. In UV mode it will use the X axis when set to Z
• Scale Speed: The speed of the scaling effect
• Cycle Pause: Sets the wait time (in seconds) between cycles
• Phase Offset: Controls the offset of the animation, allows you to specify per-material time offsets
• Scale Amount: Controls the amount of scaling applied
• Flow Smoothing: Controls the amount of smoothing applied to the flow mask
• Flow Width: Controls the width of the flow mask