General Concepts

1. What is a shader?

A shader is a program that runs on the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) and tells the computer how to render each pixel of an object, controlling its color, light, and surface texture. In Unity, shaders are used to define the appearance of materials, from a simple solid color to complex surfaces like realistic water or stylized cartoon outlines.

2. What is Post-Processing?

Post-processing applies full-screen filters and effects to a camera's image after it has been rendered, but before it is displayed on the screen. This is how effects like bloom, color grading, and depth of field are achieved. While shaders determine how individual objects and materials look, post-processing affects the entire scene to enhance its mood and visual style.

3. What is an Art Style Preset?

An art style preset is the final combination of a shader preset and a post-processing preset. The AI system must be able to configure both elements together to create a cohesive and complete final look that matches the user's input.

Bounty Specifics

4. How does the required pipeline need to work?

The expected workflow is as follows:

  1. Input: The system receives a user prompt, which can be either a text description (e.g., "cel-shaded comic book style") or a reference image.
  2. Selection: The AI analyzes the input and selects the most appropriate shader(s) and post-processing effect(s) from a pre-defined library that we provide. The system should allow us to specify which assets the AI can choose from.
  3. Configuration: The AI intelligently modifies the parameters of the selected shaders and post-processing effects to best match the desired art style.
  4. Output: The system generates a single JSON file that contains the complete configuration for the selected shaders and post-processing effects, ready to be loaded by our Art Style Manager in Unity.

5. What resources are provided to participants?

We will provide: