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High heels, cute face, all the boys, they want a taste~

Backlace 🎀 is a versatile anime (also called "toon", "cel shaded", or "npr") shader for Unity and VRChat. Backlace is packed with a wide range of features- from anime character shading, to screen-space rim lighting, to procedural glitter. Get started with a single click for a typical fully-lit anime character or dive deep into the advanced settings like Pathing and Refraction! (─‿‿─)♡

Current Version: 1.5.0
Supported Platforms: Unity Built-in Render Pipeline, VRChat, Beatsaber, MateEngine, and more!

Features 🌈

• Core Features:
  • Render Settings/Presets, Alebdo, Normal, Emission
  • Texture Stitching, Texture Post-Processing, Decals
  • Vertex and UV Manipulation, UV Sets
  • Easy VRC Fallback Control
• Lighting:
  • Models: Backlace (Default), PoiCustom, OpenLit, Standard, Mochie
  • Direction Modes: Backlace (Default), Forced, View Direction
  • Diffuse Modes: PBR, Ramp Toon, Anime Toon
  • Anime Extra Features: Ambient Gradient, Tint Mask Source, SDF Shadows
• Specular: Vertex Specular, PBR Specular, Anisotropic, Toon, Hair, Cloth
• Shading: Fresnel Rim, Depth Rim, Matcap, Cubemap, Clearcoat, Subsurface Scattering, Parallax Mapping (Fast/Fancy UV, Layered, Interior), Detail Mapping, Shadow Mapping
• Effects: Dissolve, Distance Fading, Mirror Detection, Pathing, Glitter, Iridescence, Shadow Textures, World Aligned Textures, Dithering, Touch Interactions, Flatten Model, Vertex Distortion, Low-Precision (PS1), Refraction, (Fake) Screen Space Reflections
• Shader Variants: Default, Grabpass, Outline, All
• Third Party Support: AudioLink, Super Plug Shader, LTCGI Lighting
• Custom UI built with my Dazzle library!
• Compact Shader Generation with my Premonitions library!
• Presets system built in, alongside custom preset saving
• 9 Languages! English, German, Japanese, French, Chinese, Spanish, Korean, Russian, and Cat :)
• Fully documented on my website and plenty of inline comments to help out ^^

Where Backlace Is Used 🌨️

This section will be updated when I make things with it!

• The official distribution of Backlace itself! You can find it on Gumroad, Jinxxy, Booth.pm, and Payhip (and on this repo).

Building Off Of Backlace 🫧

Note

This section is for developers who want to build off of Backlace. If you just want to use Backlace on your avatar, game, etc., you can skip this section. ( *︾▽︾)

Backlace is split into various .cginclude files to make it editing, building, and maintaining easier.

• Backlace_Forward.cginc, Backlace_Outline.cginc, Backlace_Shadow.cginc, Backlace_Meta.cginc, and Backlace_Geometry.cginc (optional, not used by default) contain the various passes of the shader.
• Backlace_Vertex.cginc and Backlace_Fragment.cginc contain the vertex and fragment shaders for the Forward pass.
• Backlace_Lighting.cginc contains the various lighting modes, while Backlace_Shading.cginc contains the various surface properties and shading code.
• Backlace_Effects.cginc contains the various effects that are typically gatekept by keywords.
• Backlace_Keywords.cginc, Backlace_Properties.cginc, and Backlace_Universal.cginc contain various helper code used throughout the shader.
• Third-party code (such as AudioLink) go into their own files, such as Backlace_AudioLink.cginc.

What you edit depends on what you want to do. A good place to start is with Backlace_Fragment.cginc and working backwards from there to see what you need to change. This modular practice also makes it easy to dynamically add different versions of the shader (ex. Outline or Grabpass) - we can just add a new define (ex. BACKLACE_GRABPASS) and use that to conditionally compile code.

License ✨

Anything in the Editor and Processor folders are under their respective licenses and not under the Backlace License. That is because these are separate projects of mine that aren't made to be built off of like Backlace, the shader, is - they are just there for the users. Backlace itself is licensed under the Backlace License (Version 1.4). Please see the LICENSE.md file for the full terms.

TL;DR —

• You’re free to use Backlace in any project (personal or commercial) at no cost.
• You must credit “Backlace” somewhere visible (like your README, store page, in-code, or credits) with a link to the official GitHub.
• If you make a derivative shader or tool based on Backlace, please include more visible credit. This doesn't apply to avatars, worlds, or games that use such shaders.
• Anything you sell with Backlace must be transformative (adding significant new features or creativity). You can’t just rebrand or resell Backlace as-is.

If you’re unsure whether your use fits the license or just want to talk about it, feel free to reach out! 💗

Attributions 🎨

• This shader was originally a fork of the Toony Standard Rebuild shader by VRLabs, which is under the MIT license. However, essentially all of that code has been replaced, removed, or rewritten.
• Various lighting modes are derived from other projects, specifically Poiyomi Toon, lilToon/OpenLit, and Mochies Unity Shaders. Thesse are all under the MIT license and code references are limited to lighting modes with those names (ex. "Poi Custom", "OpenLit", "Mochies").
• The "Flatten Model" effect is inspired directly by Lyuma's Waifu2D Shader, which is under the MIT license. Although please note it is simplified and their code is better if a flat model is purely the goal of your project!
• Original inspiration for the Raymarched SSR feature came from orel1's SSR module, which is an implementation of Mochie's fork of ERROR.mdl's SSR. Both are under MIT licenses. While Backlace's idea stemmed from there, the implementation here is much simpler and modified.
• AudioLink features, and a lot of the boilerplate code in Backlace_AudioLink.cginc, are from AudioLink, which is under a modified MIT license.
• Third-party features such as LTCGI and Super Plug Shader are unassociated projects, under their own licenses, and require separate installation.
• Default textures (ex. ramps and noises) are from a variety of sources online, notably Perlin Noise Maker, OpenGameArt, and Booth Matcap Pack 2.
• The name is inspired by a certain vulgar and promiscious angel. (｡♥‿♥｡)