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Sprite Glow/Outline Shader Breakdown (Cyanilux)

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Cyanilux

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Description

Sprite Glow/Outline Shader Breakdown is a March 2020 Cyanilux article for URP Shader Graph on 2D sprites. A distance field packed into the sprite texture alpha creates outlines, outer glow, and inner glow with color and width controls.

It contrasts this single-sample SDF method with multi-offset sampling tutorials, then walks SDF generation with Catlike Coding's free SDF Toolkit, merging the field into alpha in GIMP, and a Sprite Unlit graph using Smoothstep, glow properties, and optional UV wobble.

Intermediate Unity artists using URP, Shader Graph, and sprites will get notes on Sprite Lit vs Unlit on the 2D Renderer, sprite sheets, rigged 2D Animation, and padding for glow.

The post follows Cyanilux's free annotated breakdown format with section headings from SDF setup through the finished graph.

Widely bookmarked in Unity shader circles as a practical stylized-sprite reference.