# fx_glow One additive shader for every small emissive thing in the energy-shield effect. The material's `form` picks the look, and the per-instance lane 0 carries life, brightness and seed. It shades the 3D meshes the `ShieldFx` module builds: the brightness falls off with the angle between the surface normal and the view direction, so each mesh reads as a glowing volume with soft edges. The output colour is multiplied by the lane's brightness and the material's `gain`. - Form 0, tracer streak: along a tapered prism (`uv.x` 0 at the pointed tail, 1 at the blunt head) the colour runs from `color1` in the long fiery tail to a white-hot `color2` head. - Form 1, soft flare blob: a hot `color2` core inside a `color1` halo, fading with the square of the remaining life. - Form 2, spark: bright along the head of the prism, moving from `color2` while hot to `color1` as it cools, and fading with life. - Form 3, burning fragment: a faceted ember that cools from `color2` to dark red with a flicker whose rate comes from the seed, plus a faint `color1` glow. The `ShieldFx` module draws the effect with four materials made from it, all additive with culling off and depth writes off: `fx_streak_mat` (form 0, gain 1.0) on the incoming tracers, `fx_flare_mat` (form 1, gain 1.0) on the impact flares and the flashes where each tracer starts, `fx_spark_mat` (form 2, gain 1.8) on the sparks, and `fx_frag_mat` (form 3, gain 1.8) on the burning fragments. Each pool is one GPU-instanced draw whose lane 0 the module writes every frame: the tracer prism, a sphere for flares, the prism again for sparks, and an octahedron shard for fragments. The `ShieldFxDriver` component runs the module in the `fx_shield` scene. ## Properties | Property | Type | Default | Meaning | |---|---|---|---| | `form` | float | 0.0 | Look selector, range 0 to 4: below 0.5 tracer, below 1.5 flare, below 2.5 spark, otherwise burning fragment. | | `color1` | color | [1.0, 0.45, 0.1, 1.0] | The cooler colour: tracer tail, flare halo, cooled spark, fragment glow. | | `color2` | color | [1.0, 0.9, 0.7, 1.0] | The hot colour: tracer head, flare core, hot spark, hot fragment. | | `gain` | float | 1.0 | Multiplies the output colour (range 0 to 20). | ## Lanes | Lane | Carries | |---|---| | `data0.x` | Life, 0 to 1: fades the flare and cools the spark and fragment. | | `data0.y` | Brightness, multiplied into the output. | | `data0.z` | Seed: the fragment's flicker rate and phase. | | `data0.w` | 0. | `ShieldFx` writes (0, 1, 0, 0) for tracers, (age / life, 1, 0, 0) for flares and sparks, and (age / life, 1, seed, 0) for fragments.