shader-basics
This skill equips you with essential shader techniques for Godot game development, covering both 2D and 3D rendering pipelines. You'll explore shader syntax, material properties, and practical effects that bring visual polish to your projects. Perfect for developers ready to move beyond built-in materials into custom visual solutions.
shader-basics teaches you to write shaders in Godot by starting with shader syntax fundamentals and progressing through both 2D (canvas_item) and 3D (spatial) shader types. You'll learn how to structure shader code, define uniforms for material parameters, and apply effects to your game objects. The skill covers material setup so you can connect your custom shaders to nodes and see results in real time.
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Install
jame581/GodotPrompter/shader-basics · repository language: JavaScript
git clone https://github.com/jame581/GodotPrompter
cp -r GodotPrompter/skills/shader-basics ~/.claude/skills/shader-basicsFrequently asked questions
AI-generated answers based on this skill's SKILL.md and metadata
How do you write shaders in Godot?
shader-basics teaches you to write shaders in Godot by starting with shader syntax fundamentals and progressing through both 2D (canvas_item) and 3D (spatial) shader types. You'll learn how to structure shader code, define uniforms for material parameters, and apply effects to your game objects. The skill covers material setup so you can connect your custom shaders to nodes and see results in real time.
What are common shader recipes like dissolve and outline?
shader-basics covers practical shader recipes including dissolve effects (fading objects in/out), outline shaders for 2D character emphasis, and toon shading for stylized 3D rendering. These recipes demonstrate real-world techniques you can adapt to your own projects. Each recipe teaches the underlying math and texture sampling methods so you understand how to modify and combine effects.
What is the Godot visual shader editor and how do you use it?
shader-basics explains Godot's visual shader editor as a node-based alternative to writing shader code by hand. The visual shader editor lets you build effects by connecting nodes representing operations like texture sampling, math, and color manipulation. This skill teaches when to use the visual editor versus hand-written shaders, and how shader uniforms and material properties flow through both approaches.
How do you create post-processing and screen-space effects?
shader-basics covers post-processing by teaching you to write shaders that sample the screen texture and apply effects across the entire viewport. You'll learn screen-space techniques for effects like color grading and blur. The skill also introduces advanced features like SMAA antialiasing and stencil buffer usage for more sophisticated visual polish in your Godot projects.
What shader uniforms and parameters should you define?
shader-basics teaches you to define shader uniforms as customizable parameters exposed in the Godot material inspector. Uniforms let you adjust colors, intensities, and thresholds without recompiling shader code. This skill shows how to structure uniform declarations, set default values, and organize them logically so designers and artists can tweak visual effects directly in the editor.
Can shader-basics help with water and rim lighting effects?
shader-basics includes techniques for water shaders (wave displacement, reflection) and rim lighting (edge highlighting for 3D models). These effects demonstrate how to combine multiple shader concepts—texture sampling, vertex displacement, and lighting calculations—into polished visual features. The skill provides the foundation to implement these and similar advanced effects in your own Godot games.
SKILL.md
rendered from the published skill — quoted content, verbatim
Shaders in Godot 4.3+
All examples target Godot 4.3+ with no deprecated APIs.
> Related skills: animation-system for shader-driven effects like hit flash, godot-optimization for shader performance considerations, camera-system for post-processing camera effects, 2d-essentials for 2D lighting, pixel-art shaders, and CanvasTexture normal maps, 3d-essentials for spatial shaders and environment materials, particles-vfx for custom particle shaders, tween-animation for animating shader parameters at runtime.
1. Core Concepts
Shader Types
| Shader Type | Applied To | Use For |
|---|---|---|
canvas_item |
2D nodes (Sprite2D, Control, etc.) | 2D effects — outlines, dissolve, color swap |
spatial |
3D meshes (MeshInstance3D) | 3D materials — water, terrain, toon shading |
particles |
GPUParticles2D/3D | Custom particle behavior |
sky |
WorldEnvironment | Procedural sky rendering |
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File tree — 7 files
skills/shader-basics/SKILL.md
skills/shader-basics/references/2d-shader-recipes.md
skills/shader-basics/references/3d-shader-recipes.md
skills/shader-basics/references/compositor-effects.md
skills/shader-basics/references/post-processing.md
skills/shader-basics/references/shader-baker.md
skills/shader-basics/references/stencil-buffer.md