Unity Shader Graph and Reference

Introduction to Shader Graph

This is Part 7, the final installment of the Unity HDRP production guide, continuing from Part 6: Animation, Timeline and Export. It covers Shader Graph, and closes with a keyboard shortcut and resource reference for the whole guide.

Shader Graph is Unity's visual shader editor, letting you build custom shaders without writing code through a node-based interface. It's particularly well suited to animated visual effects (dissolve, holograms, portals), procedural materials (patterns, noise), stylized non-photoreal effects, and UV animation or geometric deformation.

Interface

Open via Window → Shader Graph, or double-click a Shader Graph asset.

Navigation: Pan with middle-click + drag, Zoom with the scroll wheel, and add a node with right-click or Space.

Creating an HDRP Shader Graph

Via Assets → Create → Shader Graph → HDRP → Lit Shader Graph. Available types: Lit, Unlit, Decal, Fabric, Hair, Eye, StackLit.

The Master Node is where every property converges into the final shader output:

Node Categories

• Input - Time, UV, Position, Normal, View Direction
• Math - Add, Subtract, Multiply, Lerp, Clamp, Sin, Cos
• UV - Tiling and Offset, Rotate, Twirl, Polar Coordinates
• Procedural - Noise (Gradient, Voronoi), Checkerboard, Polygon
• Utility - Preview, Split, Combine, Swizzle

A simple animated vortex effect, for reference, combines a few of these in sequence: drive UV rotation from Time × a speed multiplier, add a Twirl distortion, layer in tiled Voronoi noise, build a radial mask from UV length through a Smoothstep, then multiply noise × mask × color into the Emission output.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Scene View Navigation

Transform Tools

Editing and Selection

Windows

Shader Graph

Terrain

Timeline

Resources

Official documentation worth bookmarking: the HDRP Lighting guide, the VFX guide, the Package Manager tutorial, and the Terrain Toolbox tutorial.