Eisko’s physically-based character shaders now available for Unity 5

Unity 5 owners can now download a new physically-based shader pack designed to create more photo-realistic characters in their games.

The pack has been developed by French tools firm Eisko, which claims on its website that the key to a great character is “believable skin” – hence its work on a new Unity 5 shader pack.

While Unity 5’s standard shader is also physically-based, Eisko notes that it doesn’t use subsurface scattering. Without this effect, skin can often look flat and plasticky. So it has developed its own shader to mimic the way light is scattered and re-emitted by human skin. It also applies this theory to eyes, teeth and clothing.

You can find out more about the new shaders at the firm’s blog. The downloadable shader pack costs $90 and also comes with a Unity 5 test scene for users to experiment with.

A showreel for the shader pack can be viewed below: