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Upgrading from V7.x to V9.x

Because the shader was reworked in significant ways, there are significant differences made to the shader since v7.x.

This page covers a few of the major differences between the two versions that should be noted when upgrading transferring materials from one version to the next. It's not comprehensive, so be sure to ask for help in the discord if you have questions.

Shading​

Light Data​

Ambient Occlusion and Direct Shadows have been moved from a shading mode subsection to the Light Data section.

Various other settings have been moved to the Light Data section, including:

  • Min Brightness
  • Max Brightness
  • Vertex Lighting
  • Grayscale Lighting

Along with many new settings being added, allowing greater control over how Lighting can affect the Material.

Shading​

Shading modes have changed between v7.x and v8.x, and the setting will have to be re-set to ensure the correct mode is selected.

Ignore Ambient Color​

Ignore Ambient color has been added to more modes, as a sliding scale.

Toon Modes​

The "Toon" mode, with subsections for Toon Ramp, Math Gradient, and Shade Map, has been removed, with its subsections broken out into their own sections.

Math Gradient -> Multilayer Math​

The Math Gradient mode has been reworked into a new mode called Multilayer Math.

The first shading layer is equivalent to the Math Gradient mode, with "Gradient Start" and "Gradient End" having been replaced by a shadow center point and a blur. Changing the center point is equivalent to changing the average of the "Gradient Start" and "Gradient End" settings, and changing the blur is equivalent to moving the "Gradient Start" and "Gradient End" settings closer or farther apart.

Metallics/Metallics and Specular -> Reflections and Specular​

The "Metallics/Specular" and "Metallics (Deprecated)" sections have been removed, and PBR Reflections and Specular highlights have been re-worked significantly into the new Reflections & Specular module. A new inline packer has been introduced as well, which allow easy merging of Metallic and Smoothness Maps.

By opening up the Packed Maps texture slot, you can insert individual maps into each channel. You can directly use metallic and smoothness/roughness maps, or you can use the inline packer to re-map your v7 maps to the new packed map. Put your v7 map texture in both the Metallic map and Smoothness map slots, and select R and A respectively to pull from the old metallic and smoothness channels. If you used the Reflectivity map, you can also put the v7 texture in the Reflection Mask slot and select G, but this may not have the intended effect due to the more accurate PBR implementation.

Specular Highlights 1/2 -> Stylized Specular/Anisotropics​

The custom specular highlights mode has been reworked into a new feature called Stylized Specular, and Anisotropic reflections have been reworked into a new feature called Anisotropics.

Color & Normals​

Basic Emission​

Basic Emission has been removed as it was often used incorrectly.

If you have a material that should always have a minimum brightness, use the Min Brightness setting in the Light Data section.

If you need a material to have a uniform emission, use an Emission slot with Use Base Colors enabled, and a white color. This will make the Emission Strength setting equivalent to the old "Basic Emission" setting.

Alpha Options​

The Alpha options has been reworked, with Distance Alpha (Distance Fade), Fresnel Alpha, and Angular Alpha being moved to Alpha Options.

Outlines​

Outlines remain the same when jumping from V7.x to V9.x.

However, in V8.x versions, Outlines were moved to their own versions such as .poiyomi/Poiyomi Toon Outlines. This was due to Outlines incurring an extra pass. As of V9.x and newer, the Outline passes will be successfully removed from the Locked Shader if they are NOT being used on the Material. This greatly improves optimization.

Special FX​

Emission​

"Glow In The Dark" was renamed to Light Based in order to better describe the effect. It can still be used in the same way.

"Multiply Emission Strength" was removed from emission audio link, as it conflicted with (and was less useful than) the X/Y min/max additive values. To recreate its effect, set the "Min" value of Emission Add to the negative value of your base emission strength, and the "Max" value of Emission Add to zero. In Worlds with AudioLink, this will result in no emission when there's no volume in the selected channel, and the base emission value when there is max volume in that channel.

Dissolve​

"Dissolve Noise" was renamed to Dissolve Gradient, and "Dissolve Detail Noise" was renamed to Dissolve Noise. This better reflects their functionality

If you only have one dissolve map, it should be put in the Dissolve Gradient slot.

Touch FX​

Depth FX was split into two sections, Depth Bulge and Depth FX. The same options are available.

UV Modifiers​

Panosphere UV​

The Panosphere section was reworked as a UV option, which can be applied to almost any texture in the shader. This allows almost any feature to be used as a panosphere. To recreate the old panosphere section, a Decal or Emission slot can be used with the texture's UV set to Panosphere.

To configure the behavior of Panosphere UVs, see the Panosphere section located underneath Global Modifiers & Data.

Parallax/Parallax Heightmapping​

Parallax/Parallax Heightmapping have been reworked to use the new UV option system, in Parallax Heighmapping. Similar to the Panosphere option, the parallax-modified UV can be applied to almost any texture in the shader, by modifying one of the base UV slots (0, 1, 2, 3).

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