Unlit vs lit shaders in Unity - Hands-On Comparison

Unlit vs Lit Shaders in Unity

📖 Scenario: You are creating a simple Unity scene where you want to understand the difference between unlit and lit shaders. Unlit shaders do not react to light and show colors as they are, while lit shaders respond to lighting and shadows in the scene.This project will help you create two materials: one using an unlit shader and one using a lit shader, and apply them to two cubes to see the difference.

🎯 Goal: Build a Unity scene with two cubes: one with an unlit shader material and one with a lit shader material. You will create the materials in code and apply them to the cubes to observe how lighting affects each.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create two cubes in the scene using code.

Create a material with an unlit shader and assign a color.

Create a material with a lit shader and assign a color.

Apply the materials to the respective cubes.

Print the names of the shaders used to the console.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Understanding unlit vs lit shaders helps game developers control how objects appear under different lighting conditions, which is essential for creating realistic or stylized visuals.

💼 Career

Shader knowledge is important for roles like game developer, technical artist, and graphics programmer, where controlling object appearance and performance is key.

1

Create two cubes in the scene

Write code to create two cubes named unlitCube and litCube in the Unity scene using GameObject.CreatePrimitive(PrimitiveType.Cube).

Unity

# Create two cubes named unlitCube and litCube
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use GameObject.CreatePrimitive(PrimitiveType.Cube) twice and assign the results to unlitCube and litCube.

2

Create materials with unlit and lit shaders

Create two materials called unlitMaterial and litMaterial. Assign the shader Shader.Find("Unlit/Color") to unlitMaterial and Shader.Find("Standard") to litMaterial. Set unlitMaterial.color to red and litMaterial.color to blue.

Unity

using UnityEngine;

public class ShaderDemo : MonoBehaviour
{
    GameObject unlitCube;
    GameObject litCube;

    void Start()
    {
        unlitCube = GameObject.CreatePrimitive(PrimitiveType.Cube);
        unlitCube.name = "unlitCube";
        unlitCube.transform.position = new Vector3(-1.5f, 0, 0);

        litCube = GameObject.CreatePrimitive(PrimitiveType.Cube);
        litCube.name = "litCube";
        litCube.transform.position = new Vector3(1.5f, 0, 0);

        // Create unlitMaterial and litMaterial with correct shaders and colors
        // Your code here
    }
}

Need a hint?

Use new Material(Shader.Find("Unlit/Color")) for the unlit material and new Material(Shader.Find("Standard")) for the lit material. Then set their colors.

3

Apply materials to the cubes

Assign unlitMaterial to the Renderer.material of unlitCube and litMaterial to the Renderer.material of litCube.

Unity

using UnityEngine;

public class ShaderDemo : MonoBehaviour
{
    GameObject unlitCube;
    GameObject litCube;

    Material unlitMaterial;
    Material litMaterial;

    void Start()
    {
        unlitCube = GameObject.CreatePrimitive(PrimitiveType.Cube);
        unlitCube.name = "unlitCube";
        unlitCube.transform.position = new Vector3(-1.5f, 0, 0);

        litCube = GameObject.CreatePrimitive(PrimitiveType.Cube);
        litCube.name = "litCube";
        litCube.transform.position = new Vector3(1.5f, 0, 0);

        unlitMaterial = new Material(Shader.Find("Unlit/Color"));
        unlitMaterial.color = Color.red;

        litMaterial = new Material(Shader.Find("Standard"));
        litMaterial.color = Color.blue;

        // Assign materials to the cubes' Renderer components
        // Your code here
    }
}

Need a hint?

Use GetComponent<Renderer>().material = to assign the materials to each cube.

4

Print the shader names to the console

Write two Debug.Log statements to print the shader names of unlitMaterial and litMaterial using unlitMaterial.shader.name and litMaterial.shader.name.

Unity

using UnityEngine;

public class ShaderDemo : MonoBehaviour
{
    GameObject unlitCube;
    GameObject litCube;

    Material unlitMaterial;
    Material litMaterial;

    void Start()
    {
        unlitCube = GameObject.CreatePrimitive(PrimitiveType.Cube);
        unlitCube.name = "unlitCube";
        unlitCube.transform.position = new Vector3(-1.5f, 0, 0);

        litCube = GameObject.CreatePrimitive(PrimitiveType.Cube);
        litCube.name = "litCube";
        litCube.transform.position = new Vector3(1.5f, 0, 0);

        unlitMaterial = new Material(Shader.Find("Unlit/Color"));
        unlitMaterial.color = Color.red;

        litMaterial = new Material(Shader.Find("Standard"));
        litMaterial.color = Color.blue;

        unlitCube.GetComponent().material = unlitMaterial;
        litCube.GetComponent().material = litMaterial;

        // Use Debug.Log to print shader names
        // Your code here
    }
}

Need a hint?

Use Debug.Log("Unlit shader used: " + unlitMaterial.shader.name) and similarly for litMaterial.