Soft Mask is a package for Unity 3D that implements smooth masking for UI (UGUI). It works almost like the standard Unity's mask, but supports alpha, which enables gradual and semi-transparent masks.
The key feature of Soft Mask is its ease of use. You don't need to be a programmer to use it—just drop the Soft Mask component on a UI object as you do with the standard Unity Mask and here you go.
The package had been sold on Asset Store for several years, but in late 2022 it was open-sourced under the MIT license with Commons Clause. In short, this license means that you're free to use this tool in your games, but you don't have the rights to resell the Soft Mask itself.
To better understand what the Soft Mask is, check out the online demo.
The easiest way to install Soft Mask is via the Package Manager window by using GitHub URL. Press the Add button in the Package Manager window and enter the following URL:
https://github.com/olegknyazev/SoftMask.git?path=/Packages/com.olegknyazev.softmask#1.7.0
Pay attention to the version that's encoded within this URL.
Alternatively, you can get the package directly from the Packages/com.olegknyazev.softmask subfolder. A pre-built artifact
is not provided at the moment.
- Documentation
- Changelog
- Support Thread — This thread was one of the primary support lines while the package was paid. You still can find some useful information there or post a bug, but GitHub is a preferred place to reporting bugs.
The remaining of the document is aimed at those who is interested in modifying the package.
At the root of the repository we have a regular Unity project which contains the package itself under
Packages/com.olegknyazev.softmask directory as well as some additional assets and scripts for development.
Soft Mask has a set of automated tests that work by comparing render results in various test scenes against the pre-recorded screenshots. In general, it's a bad idea to use rendering results in testing because they may depend on specific software (version of OS, Unity, selected render system) or hardware. But in the case of Soft Mask, which highly depends on shaders, I don't see a good alternative, so I decided to use this approach.
All the screenshot-comparing tests were recorded on MacOS 15.1 and Unity 2020 with the Metal renderer, and they may not be compatible with screenshots taken on a different setup.
The tests use the perceptualdiff utility, so you need to have it installed in order to run the tests.
To run the automated tests suite, perform the following:
- Import the TextMesh Pro package, essential resources, and additional examples. The additional resources are used in some TMPro-related test scenes, so you have to have them in the project in order for these tests to work.
- Update TextMesh Pro integration.
- Open scene
Assets/Extra/Test/Scenes/_RunAllAutomationTests.unity. - [Optional] Select the TestsRunner object and modify properties as need for this specific run.
- Run the scene in Play Mode.
- Wait for automation tests to end. Do not remove focus from the Unity Editor windows during the testing.
Besides these screenshot-comparing tests, we also have several classic editor-mode tests for the functionality that could be tested this way.
The documentation for Soft Mask is written in Google Documents and exported as a PDF. The source document for 1.7.0 is available here.
