Optional Pass Parameters

The parameters in Pass are mainly divided into two parts: the developer-defined effect parameter and the PipelineStates parameter provided by the engine, this document mainly introduces the parameters related to PipelineStates, all the parameters are case-insensitive.

Properties

Specifies the public interfaces exposed to material inspector and runtime API.
It can be a direct mapping to shader uniforms, or specific channels of the uniform:

albedo: { value: [1, 1, 1, 1] } # uniform vec4 albedo
roughness: { value: 0.8, target: pbrParams.g } # uniform vec4 pbrParams
offset: { value: [0, 0], target: tilingOffset.zw } # uniform vec4 tilingOffset
# say there is another uniform, vec4 emissive, that doesn't appear here
# so it will be assigned a default value of [0, 0, 0, 0] and will not appear in the inspector

Runtime reference is straightforward:

// as long as it is a real uniform
// it doesn't matter whether it is specified in the property list or not
mat.setProperty('emissive', Color.GREY); // this works
mat.setProperty('albedo', Color.RED); // directly set uniform
mat.setProperty('roughness', 0.2); // set certain component
const h = mat.passes[0].getHandle('offset'); // or just take the handle,
mat.passes[0].setUniform(h, new Vec2(0.5, 0.5)); // and use Pass.setUniform interface instead

Shader uniforms that are not in the properties list will be given a default value.

For quick setup and experiment, the __metadata__ feature is provided, which will be the 'base class' for all other properties:

properties:
  __metadata__: { editor: { visible: false } }
  a: { value: [1, 1, 0, 0] }
  b: { editor: { type: color } }
  c: { editor: { visible: true } }

Here a and b will no longer appear in the inspector, while c stays visible.

Property Parameter List

The configurable parameters in Property are shown in the table below, and any configurable field can be omitted if it is the same as the default value.

Migrations

Ideally the public interface of an effect should always be backward-compatible, but occasionally introducing breaking changes might become the only option as the project iterate. A smooth data transition would be much desired during the process, which leads to the migration system.

After an effect with migrations is successfully compiled, all the dependent material assets will be immediately updated, new property will be automatically migrated/generated from existing data using specified rules.

Note: please remember to backup your project before doing any migration attemps!

For a existing effect, declares the following migration rules:

migrations:
  # macros: # macros follows the same rule as properties, without the component-wise features
  #   USE_MIAN_TEXTURE: { formerlySerializedAs: USE_MAIN_TEXTURE }
  properties:
    newFloat: { formerlySerializedAs: oldVec4.w }

Say we have a dependent material, with the following data:

{
  "oldVec4": {
    "__type__": "cc.Vec4",
    "x": 1,
    "y": 1,
    "z": 1,
    "w": 0.5
  }
}

After the effect is compiled, the material will be automatically updated to:

{
  "oldVec4": {
    "__type__": "cc.Vec4",
    "x": 1,
    "y": 1,
    "z": 1,
    "w": 0.5
  },

  "newFloat": 0.5
}

And after the next save operation on this material: (say the content is actually not changed)

{
  "newFloat": 0.5
}

We are just using the w channel here, while in fact arbitrary shuffle is supported too:

newColor: { formerlySerializedAs: someOldColor.yxx }

Or even based on a target macro:

occlusion: { formerlySerializedAs: pbrParams.<OCCLUSION_CHANNEL|z> }

This means the new occlusion data will be extracted from pbrParams data, the specific channel depend on the OCCLUSION_CHANNEL macro of current pass, and default to channel z if macro data not present.
If newFloat property already exists before migration, nothing will happen, unless in force mode:

newFloat: { formerlySerializedAs: oldVec4.w! }

Then the migration is guaranteed to execute, regardless of the existing data.

Note: migration in force mode will execute in every database event, which is basically every mouse click in editor. So use it as a quick-and-dirty test measure, and be sure not to submit effect files with force mode migrations into version control.

Again here are the bottomline rules about preventing potential data losses:

• Property removal will happen if, and only if, you specify the removeImmediately entry explicitly.
• Property override will happen if, and only if, you end the formerlySerializedAs entry with ! (force mode)

RasterizerState

DepthStencilState

BlendState

Default Values

For defines:

• The default value for the boolean type is false.
• The default value for the number type is 0, and the value range is [0, 3].
• The default value for the string type is the first element of the options array.