Taken Shader

The Taken Shader (Mochie/Taken) is a stylized avatar effect shader inspired by the Taken in Destiny. It produces a glowing, corrupted look driven by the mesh's ambient occlusion. Everything it draws is converted to grayscale and then tinted by a single Global Tint, so the whole effect is one color.

Base

• Blending Mode: How the material handles transparency. Non-opaque modes use the Base Color texture's alpha.
  • Opaque: No transparency.
  • Cutout: Parts with alpha below the Cutout threshold are cut away, with smoothed edges when MSAA is on.
  • Dithered: Fades with a fine dither pattern while still sorting like an opaque object.
  • Fade: Standard alpha-blended transparency.
  • Transparent: Premultiplied transparency, which keeps glowing parts bright as the material fades.
• ZWrite (Transparent): Whether the material writes to the depth buffer. Turning it on can fix sorting issues within the mesh, at the cost of hiding transparent objects behind it.
• Culling: Which sides of the mesh are drawn: Off draws both sides, Front hides front faces, and Back hides back faces (the default).
• Render Queue Offset: Offsets the render queue by this value, to change when the material draws relative to other objects. The resulting Render Queue is shown below it.
• Global Tint: Determines the color of the majority of effects in the shader. The final result is converted to grayscale and multiplied by this color.
• Cutout (Cutout mode): The alpha threshold. Parts of the Base Color texture with lower alpha are cut away.
• Smoothstep: Applies a smoothstep curve to the base color and emission, which increases their contrast.
• Base Color: The base texture. Its alpha is used for transparency. Includes tiling and offset, which apply to every texture except the emission patterns, dissolve map, and outline mask.
  • Invert: Uses an inverted copy of the texture.
• Normal Map: Determines how light behaves on the surface, which affects the reflections and rim. The value sets its strength.

Lighting

Enabled with its toggle. Multiplies the base color by the scene's lighting (the realtime light's color plus ambient light), without directional shading or shadows. Emission and the other effects aren't affected by lighting.

• Spherical Harmonics: Applies spherical harmonic shading based on ambient light data, which gives a more Standard-like appearance. When off, the ambient light is one flat color.
• Reflections: Enables reflections of the world's reflection probes.
• Metallic (Reflections): How metallic the surface looks. Metallic surfaces have a darker base color and reflections tinted by it. The value multiplies the map.
• Roughness (Reflections): How rough or smooth the surface looks. Rougher surfaces have blurrier reflections. The value multiplies the map.
• Reflections (Reflections): The strength of the reflections, with a mask (black areas have no reflections).

Rim

Enabled with its toggle. A glow along the edges of the mesh where it turns away from the viewer.

• Strength: The brightness of the rim.
• Width: How far the rim reaches in from the edges. Inside the Gradient, the rim grows wider.
• Sharpness: How hard the rim's inner edge is. Higher values give a sharper edge.
• Gradient Masking: Masks the rim effect inside the gradient, so it will only be visible where the gradient is. At 1, the rim outside the gradient is dimmed to a faint trace.
• Mask: Limits where the rim appears. Black areas have no rim.

Emission

• Emission (AO): Takes an ambient occlusion map and inverts it to determine emission. This is the same technique used by Bungie for the effect in Destiny: crevices and folds glow, and exposed surfaces stay dark. The green channel is used.
  • Invert: Whether the map is inverted. Turn it off to make the brightest parts of the map glow instead.
• Strength: The brightness of the emission.
• Exponent: Raises the emission to this power. Higher values concentrate the glow into the deepest crevices.
• Gradient Masking: Masks the emission inside the gradient, so it will only be visible where the gradient is. At 1, the emission outside the gradient almost disappears.
• Gradient Exemption Mask: Controls where Gradient Masking applies, for the AO emission and both patterns. Black areas are exempt from the gradient masking, so they glow everywhere.
• Emission Pattern 1 and Emission Pattern 2: Two scrolling textures added on top of the emission, for effects like energy flowing over the surface. Once a texture is set, each has:
  • Strength: The brightness of the pattern.
  • Strength in Gradient: Multiplies the pattern's brightness inside the gradient, so it can flare up where the gradient is. Its effect scales with the pattern's Gradient Masking.
  • Gradient Masking: Masks the pattern inside the gradient, so it will only be visible where the gradient is.
  • Tiling, Offset, and Scrolling: Scale, shift, and animate the pattern.

Gradient

Enabled with its toggle. A band of animated, smoky noise that glows along one axis of the mesh, like the Taken energy rising from the ground. Rim, Emission, and Noise Patches can be masked to it.

• Invert Axis: Flips the direction the gradient comes from.
• Axis: The direction the gradient will be applied. Y will come from below, Z will come from the front or behind, and X will come from the left or right. These directions are based on the mesh root position.
• Noise Scale: The size of the noise on each axis. Higher values give smaller, busier noise.
• Brightness: The brightness of the noise.
• End Position: How far from the start position the gradient will reach. The gradient fades out completely at this position on the chosen axis.
• Start Position: The position on the chosen axis that the gradient will start, measured by the distance from the mesh origin. The gradient is at full strength here.
• Scroll Speed: How fast the noise scrolls along the axis.
• Contrast: The contrast of the noise. Higher values give more defined wisps.
• Mask: Limits where the gradient appears. Black areas have no gradient.

Noise Patches

Enabled with its toggle. Animated patches of noise that replace the surface color, giving it a mottled, shifting look. Patches are dimmer outside the gradient and brighter inside it.

• Scale: The size of the noise on each axis. Higher values give smaller patches.
• Brightness: The brightness of the patches.
• Cutoff: How much of the noise becomes patches. Higher values give fewer, smaller patches.
• Smoothing: Smoothens the edges of the noise patches.
• Mask: Limits where patches appear. Black areas have no patches.

Dissolve

Enabled with its toggle. Requires a non-opaque blending mode. Dissolves the mesh away with a pattern.

• Dissolve Map: The dissolve pattern (red channel). Darker areas dissolve first. Includes tiling and offset.
• Strength: The dissolve amount. At 0 the mesh is whole; at 1 it's gone.
• Rim Brightness: The brightness of the glowing edge along the dissolve.
• Rim Width: How wide the glowing edge is.

Outline

Enabled with its toggle. Requires a non-transparent blending mode (Opaque, Cutout, or Dithered). Draws an outline by pushing a copy of the mesh outward.

• Invert Tint: Uses an inverted copy of the base color texture to determine outline tint. The outline shows a softened, inverted version of the base color and emission instead of a flat Global Tint.
• Stencil Mode: Will only display the outline outside the mesh, so it doesn't draw over the mesh itself.
• Thickness: How far the outline extends from the mesh.
• Mask: Limits the outline's thickness. Black areas have no outline.