I'm trying to learn how to make my own materials in Unity and started following a unity shader graph tutorial. I can follow the steps to recreate an effect, but I don't really understand *why* connecting certain nodes works. How do you move from just copying tutorials to actually designing your own visual effects?
Nice goal moving from copying to designing your own visuals starts with a mindset shift not just following steps inspect what each node does and how data flows
Start small pick a tiny effect like a glow or edge glow and map the data path on paper first then translate it into the shader graph
In shader graph think of it as a flow chart the key is tracing data from a texture sample through a few math steps to the final color and asking what each step contributes
Rather than chase dozens of tricks pick a few core techniques and build them into reusable blocks then mix them together you will learn what looks specific changes cause
Document your reasoning as you wire things up a quick note on why you chose a certain node helps when you forget later
If you want I can help you plan a tiny first project and sketch a rough node layout for your target effect so you can see the how rather than just the what