.. _doc_shader_materials:

Shader materials
================

Introduction
------------

For the most common cases, Godot provides ready to use materials for
most types of shaders, such as :ref:`StandardMaterial3D <class_StandardMaterial3D>`,
:ref:`CanvasItemMaterial <class_CanvasItemMaterial>` and :ref:`ParticleProcessMaterial <class_ParticleProcessMaterial>`.
They are flexible implementations that cover most use cases.

Shader materials allow writing a custom shader directly, for maximum flexibility.
Examples of this are:

-  Create procedural textures.
-  Create complex texture blending effects.
-  Create animated materials, or materials that change over time.
-  Create refractive effects or other advanced effects.
-  Create special lighting shaders for more exotic materials.
-  Animate vertices, like tree leaves or grass.
-  Create custom particle code.
-  And much more!

Godot provides built-in functionality to make frequent operations
easier. Additionally, Godot's shader editor will detect errors as you
type, so you can see your edited shaders in real-time. It is also
possible to edit shaders using a visual, node-based graph editor.

Creating a ShaderMaterial
-------------------------

Create a new ShaderMaterial in some object of your choice. Go to the
"Material" property and create a ShaderMaterial.

.. image:: img/shader_material_create.png

Next, click on the shader material to see its properties. From here you
can create a shader or visual shader. Regular shaders use code to set
their properties while a visual shader uses a node based workflow.

If you need to you can convert a visual shader to a text shader.
However you can't convert a text shader to a visual shader.

Choose one of them and you can start editing your shader.

.. image:: img/shader_create.png

If you create a regular shader click on it and the shader editor will open.

.. image:: img/shader_material_editor.png

If you create a visual shader the visual shader editor will open automatically.

.. image:: img/visual_shader_editor.png

In the visual shader editor you can click a button and see what your visual
shader looks like as shader code. This can be useful if you're trying to
replicate a text shader as nodes, or it can be used as a preview for converting
your visual shader to a text shader.

.. image:: img/visual_shader_code.png

.. note::

   To learn more about visual shaders, read :ref:`doc_visual_shaders`.

Converting to ShaderMaterial
----------------------------

It is possible to convert from StandardMaterial3D, CanvasItemMaterial and
ParticleProcessMaterial to ShaderMaterial. To do so, go to the material properties
and select the convert option.

.. image:: img/shader_material_convert.png

.. note::

   Using the convert option will turn the StandardMaterial3D into a ShaderMaterial
   with a text shader, not a visual shader.