Use built-in HLSL structures in the Built-In Render Pipeline

Use prebuilt HLSL vertex input structures from UnityCG.cginc to simplify vertex shaderA program that runs on the GPU. More info
See in Glossary declarations in the Built-In Render PipelineA series of operations that take the contents of a Scene, and displays them on a screen. Unity lets you choose from pre-built render pipelines, or write your own. More info
See in Glossary.

To use a prebuilt structure, follow these steps:

1. Add #include "UnityCG.cginc" at the top of your HLSLPROGRAM. This imports the UnityCG.cginc file, which contains the prebuilt structures.
2. When you declare your vertex shaderA program that runs on each vertex of a 3D model when the model is being rendered. More info
   See in Glossary function, use one of the prebuilt structures as the input parameter type. For example, to use appdata_base, use v2f vert (appdata_base vertex_data).

The prebuilt structures in UnityCG.cginc are:

• appdata_base: Declares vertex for position, normal, and texcoord.
• appdata_tan: Declares vertex for position, tangent, normal, and texcoord.
• appdata_full: Declares vertex for position, tangent, normal, color, texcoord, texcoord1, texcoord2, and texcoord3.
• appdata_img: Declares vertex for position, and texcoord.

Example

The following shader uses appdata_base, and colors the meshThe main graphics primitive of Unity. Meshes make up a large part of your 3D worlds. Unity supports triangulated or Quadrangulated polygon meshes. Nurbs, Nurms, Subdiv surfaces must be converted to polygons. More info
See in Glossary based on its normals.

Shader "VertexInputSimple" {
    SubShader {
        Pass {
            HLSLPROGRAM
            #pragma vertex vert
            #pragma fragment frag
            #include "UnityCG.cginc"
         
            // Declare the structure for data passed from the vertex shader to the fragment shader.
            struct v2f {
                float4 position : SV_POSITION;
                half4 color : COLOR;
            };
            
            // Use the built-in appdata_base structure for the vertex shader.
            v2f vert (appdata_base v)
            {
                v2f output_data;

                // Use the position from appdata_base.
                output_data.position = UnityObjectToClipPos(v.vertex);

                // Use the normal from appdata_base. 
                output_data.color.xyz = v.normal * 0.5 + 0.5;

                output_data.color.w = 1.0;
                return output_data;
            }

            half4 frag (v2f i) : SV_Target { 
                return i.color; 
            }

            ENDHLSL
        }
    } 
}

Additional resources

• Import a file from the shader library in the Built-In Render Pipeline
• Input data into HLSL
• Shader methods in the Built-In Render Pipeline reference