Legacy Documentation: Version 5.3
ShaderLab: SubShader
ShaderLab: Culling & Depth Testing

ShaderLab: Pass

The Pass block causes the geometry of a GameObject to be rendered once.

Syntax

Pass { [Name and Tags] [RenderSetup] }

The basic Pass command contains a list of render state setup commands.

Name and tags

A Pass can define its Name and arbitrary number of Tags. These are name/value strings that communicate the Pass’s intent to the rendering engine.

Render state set-up

A Pass sets up various states of the graphics hardware, such as whether alpha blending should be turned on or whether depth testing should be used.

The commands are as follows:

Cull

Cull Back | Front | Off

Set polygon culling mode.

ZTest

ZTest (Less | Greater | LEqual | GEqual | Equal | NotEqual | Always)

Set depth buffer testing mode.

ZWrite

ZWrite On | Off

Set depth buffer writing mode.

Offset

Offset OffsetFactor, OffsetUnits

Set Z buffer depth offset. See documentation on Cull and Depth page for more details.

See documentation on Cull and Depth for more details on Cull, ZTest, ZWrite and Offset.

Blend

Blend sourceBlendMode destBlendMode
Blend sourceBlendMode destBlendMode, alphaSourceBlendMode alphaDestBlendMode
BlendOp colorOp
BlendOp colorOp, alphaOp
AlphaToMask On | Off

Sets alpha blending, alpha operation, and alpha-to-coverage modes. See docuentation on Blending for more details.

ColorMask

ColorMask RGB | A | 0 | any combination of R, G, B, A

Set color channel writing mask. Writing ColorMask 0 turns off rendering to all color channels. Default mode is writing to all channels (RGBA), but for some special effects you might want to leave certain channels unmodified, or disable color writes completely.

Legacy fixed-function Shader commands

A number of commands are used for writing legacy “fixed-function style” Shaders. This is considered deprecated functionality, as writing Surface Shaders or Shader programs allows much more flexibility. However, for very simple Shaders, writing them in fixed-function style can sometimes be easier, so the commands are provided here. Note that all of the following commands are are ignored if you are not using fixed-function Shaders.

Fixed-function Lighting and Material

Lighting On | Off
Material { Material Block }
SeparateSpecular On | Off
Color Color-value
ColorMaterial AmbientAndDiffuse | Emission

All of these control fixed-function per-vertex Lighting: they turn it on, set up Material colors, turn on specular highlights, provide default color (if vertex Lighting is off), and controls how the mesh vertex colors affect Lighting. See documentation on Materials for more details.

Fixed-function Fog

Fog { Fog Block }

Set fixed-function Fog parameters. See documentation onFogging for more details.

Fixed-function AlphaTest

AlphaTest (Less | Greater | LEqual | GEqual | Equal | NotEqual | Always) CutoffValue

Turns on fixed-function alpha testing. See documentation on alpha testing for more details.

Fixed-function Texture combiners

After the render state setup, use SetTexture commands to specify a number of Textures and their combining modes:

SetTexture textureProperty { combine options }

Details

Shader passes interact with Unity’s rendering pipeline in several ways; for example, a Pass can indicate that it should only be used for deferred shading using the Tags command. Certain passes can also be executed multiple times on the same GameObject; for example, in forward rendering the “ForwardAdd” pass type is executed multiple times based on how many Lights are affecting the GameObject. See documentation on the Render Pipeline for more details.

See also

There are several special passes available for reusing common functionality or implementing various high-end effects:

  • UsePass includes named passes from another shader.
  • GrabPass grabs the contents of the screen into a Texture, for use in a later pass.
ShaderLab: SubShader
ShaderLab: Culling & Depth Testing