Furality Somna Shader Documentation

The Furality Somna Shader

What is it?

The Furality Somna Shader is a PBR shader. This means it uses "Physically Based Rendering". Or more simply put, realistic lighting. The shader has some special effects such as Starshine and Dreamweave, as well as Furality's Luma Glow system. Luma Glow allows our club world to connect to your avatar and display hand-authored effects in your emissions. This lets you really become part of the show!

Luma Glow is an entirely programmed light show created by our AV Team to be perfectly matched to the music and lighting in Club F.Y.N.N. during Furality conventions.

AudioLink is instead a generated effect from the audio feed created by analyzing the sound playing itself.

How to apply the shader

With the example scene - Recommended for new users

  1. In Packages -> Furality Somna Shader -> Examples -> Scene, Open the "Somna Material Examples" scene to view examples of the shader pre-applied
  2. Import your avatar into the scene
  3. Click on an example material sphere
  4. In the inspector, find the material slot and click it
  5. The file explorer will now show the materials within the scene
  6. Duplicate the example material of your choice (Ctrl + D)
  7. Drag it onto your avatar
  8. Apply your textures and adjust properties as needed

With an example material - Recommended for new users

  1. Create a new scene
  2. Import your avatar into the scene
  3. Navigate to "Packages -> Furality Somna Shader -> Examples -> Materials"
  4. Duplicate one of the example materials (Ctrl + D)
  5. Drag the material onto your avatar
  6. Apply textures and adjust properties as needed

With a new material

  1. Create a new scene
  2. Import your avatar into the scene
  3. Right click in the file explorer in Unity
  4. Select "Create"
  5. Select "Material"
  6. Name the newly created material whatever you wish
  7. Select the material to open it in the inspector
  8. Look for the "Shader" drop down at the top of the material inspector
  9. Select "Furality" from the dropdown to explore this folder
  10. Select "Somna Shader" from the dropdown to explore this folder
  11. Drag the material onto your avatar
  12. Apply textures and adjust properties as needed

With an existing material

  1. Create a new scene
  2. Import your avatar into the scene
  3. Select the material to open it in the inspector
  4. Look for the "Shader" drop down at the top of the material inspector
  5. Select "Furality" from the dropdown to explore this folder
  6. Select "Somna Shader" from the dropdown to explore this folder
  7. Drag the material onto your avatar
  8. Apply textures and adjust properties as needed

Workflow Selector

The Furality Somna Shader features a new menu that allows you to select your texture workflow. This is useful for avatar creators and texture artists as it allows arbitrary channel packing. Utilizing this feature fully can allow for major savings to VRAM.

Workflows

Metallic - This is Unity's default workflow for the standard shader.

  • Metallic (Mask Map 01)
    • R - Metallic
    • G - Unused
    • B - Unused
    • A - Gloss
  • Occlusion (Mask Map 02)
    • R - Occlusion
    • G - Occlusion
    • B - Unused
    • A - Unused

Specular - Workflow that uses an additional texture map for specular colors rather than relying on metallic.

  • Specular (Mask Map 01)
    • RGB - Specular Color
    • A - Gloss
  • Occlusion (Mask Map 02)
    • R - Occlusion
    • G - Occlusion
    • B - Unused
    • A - Unused

Packed - Workflow with arbitrary channel selection. The most versatile. Can work with any texture map but requires proper setup.

How to use Luma Glow

Luma Glow - Simple

screenshot highlighting the enable emission checkmark

The simplest way to use Luma Glow is by using your emission. Drag your emission texture into the little square next to "Emission" or click the small circle to open a texture browser. After that, check the "Enable Emission" checkbox and make sure the color that is marked "HDR" is set to white so your emissions show.

screenshot highlighting the emission glow dropdown under luma glow

Now, open the Luma Glow/AudioLink dropdown and, under that, open the "Emission Glow" dropdown. Here, you can select one of our Luma Glow zones from the list.

Luma Glow zones are entirely aesthetic. It doesn't matter which one you pick! The zones are there so you may coordinate with friends and have all of your effects match up. Or maybe your avatar has multiple materials, and you'd like to vary the effects a little bit on each one. That's what these are for!

Luma Glow gradients are similar to zones but support even more complex patterns. However, they also may require additional setup for some avatars if the effect passes over a UV seam.

screenshot highlighting zone 1 being selected under luma glow

With a zone selected, you're done! You can now join the Somna Shader test world and see how your avatar looks! If you run into any issues, feel free to ask for assistance in our #shader-help channel.

Luma Glow - Advanced

Luma Glow has a lot of customizability, but using the shader to its fullest extent can seem a bit daunting. Hopefully, this clears things up!

Mask Maps

screenshot highlighting glow mask being selected under luma glow
screenshot highlighting glow mask under emission

Mask maps can be used to add even more complexity to the way your avatar reacts to Luma Glow. Using mask maps in conjunction with your emission allows for up to 5 separate zones or gradients to be mapped onto your avatar! To use one for Luma Glow, just specify a mask and a color channel.

What does "Mode" do?

screenshot highlighting what glow modes are available under luma glow
  • Global - Luma Glow will affect your entire mesh at once
  • Pulse - A directional wave across your mesh's UVs
  • Radial - Similar to pulse but is in the shape of a circle and radiates out from its center
  • Direction Map - Uses a grayscale gradient texture to map the effect
  • Reversed Direction Map - Inverts the direction defined by the direction map

Special Effects

We've provided some unique, beautiful effects to enhance your look while attending Furality Somna: glistening shine, sparkling stars, cozy patterns and gradients, and more! All effects can be masked using Mask Maps, just like your emissions and Luma Glow, as noted earlier.

Starshine

screenshot showing the starshine effect

The Starshine effect provides a gently shimmering metallic effect.

Dreamweave

screenshot showing the dreamweave effect

The Dreamweave effect includes a customizable grid with special movement effects when in-game, as well as a gradient that slowly shifts back and forth between the set colors.

Stardust

screenshot showing the stardust effect

The Stardust effect allows you to add some celestial sparkle! Glittering stars hover around you, twinkling in and out of existence. You can also optionally enable the Constellation effect within Stardust, which uses a grid-based image to allow for randomized constellation shapes to fade in and out alongside the stardust.

Outline

screenshot showing the outline effect

The Outline effect renders an outline around the object the material is applied to.

Rainbow

screenshot showing the rainbow effect

The Rainbow effect applies a scrolling rainbow to the avatar. This also allows you to enable Rainbow Outline and Rainbow Stardust effects, which can be further customized within their respective sections.

screenshot showing the rainbow effect with stardust

If you want to apply the Rainbow effect to only Outline and/or Stardust, change the Mask -> Map within the Rainbow section to "Off".

Need help with the Furality Somna shader?

If you have questions or need assistance with the Furality Somna shader, please join the official Furality Discord server, and inquire in the #shader-help channel!

Credits

Shader created by Naito Ookami