Effects and Properties

The material has 30 effects in five groups, listed here in the order the material inspector shows them. Turn an effect on with its toggle and its properties appear under it. Any of them can be combined, and an effect that is off costs nothing.

Each effect’s toggle is numbered in the inspector, “1. Bevel” to “30. Distortion”, and hovering over it or over a property shows the name a script uses for it.

The top of the material

Show Font Properties opens the font’s atlas, the blurred copy of it that some effects read, and the font values the toolkit fills in for you. Leave these as they are; they follow the text’s font asset. See Fonts and Font Assets.

Show Advanced Configuration opens the render settings: blend modes, culling, depth, color mask, stencil and render queue, plus Blending Mode, which draws the whole text as None (normal), Multiply or Additive. The defaults suit almost every text.

Under Global Properties, the letters themselves:

Property	What it does
Face Color	The letters’ color, multiplied with TextMeshPro’s own color and color tags. HDR, so it can feed bloom
Face Dilate	Thickens the letters above 0, thins them below
Softness	Blurs the letters’ edges
Character extra margin	Extra room around each letter for its effects. Raise it if an effect is cut off in a straight line
Inner Alpha	The opacity of the letters’ face. At 0 only the outlines, glows and shadows remain
Color Intensity	Multiplies the final color, outlines and glows included, to brighten it or push it into bloom

Two kinds of distance

The material inspector's 30 effects in five groups, each with its numbered toggle

Some properties are measured in the font’s own distance field rather than in pixels, so an effect looks the same at any font size: Face Dilate, Outline Thickness, Glow Size and Shadows Size. In that unit, 1 is the full padding of the font atlas, the furthest distance from the letter the atlas stores. Going past it works, at a small cost that the inspector tells you about. Fonts and Font Assets explains both.

The shadow offsets and Extrude’s depth are measured in font atlas pixels instead, which also scale with the letter.

Whole text, or each letter

Some effects lay one pattern over the whole text, so it runs continuously from letter to letter: Shine, Hologram, Overlay Texture, Color Gradient (in Rect scope), LEDs, Pixelate, Round Wave, Twist and Fade. The others work inside each letter on its own.

Most animated effects also give every letter its own time offset, so the letters move out of step with each other instead of in unison: Overlay Texture, Wave, Warp, Glitch, Hand Drawn, Distortion, Flicker, Wind and the noise of Color Gradient.

Lighting

Bevel

Gives each letter a raised edge lit from one direction, with a lit side and a shadowed side. It can add a normal map, a specular highlight and a reflection cubemap, and it can take its light from a scene object so every text shares one light. It has its own page: Bevel, Extrude and Lighting.

Drop Shadow

A copy of the letters behind them, offset and softened. Two shadows can be stacked.

Property	What it does
Shadow Color	The shadow’s color. Its alpha is the shadow’s opacity
Shadows Size	At 0.5 the shadow is the letter’s own size. Higher grows it, lower shrinks it
Offset X, Offset Y	How far the shadow moves, in font atlas pixels, from -40 to 40. It scales with the letter
Smoothness	0 is a hard shadow, higher values blur it
Drop Shadow (02)	A second shadow with the same five properties

The first shadow draws over the second, and the text draws over both. Shadows keep their own color: no color effect and no bevel ever touches them. For a dark halo all around the letters, use a shadow with both offsets at 0.

Each shadow ends with a note when its size reaches past the font’s padding, and the note says the largest size that stays within it.

Extrude

Gives the letters depth: a lit side wall behind each letter, as if it were cut from a block. The sides always draw behind every letter, never over one. It has its own page: Bevel, Extrude and Lighting.

Color Effects

The adjustments (Hue Shift, Greyscale, Posterize, Contrast and Brightness, Color Grading and Color Ramp in its After Effects stage) run last, on the finished text. So a Hue Shift also turns the colors of the outlines, the glows and the bevel’s light and shadow, which keeps a whole look consistent while you change its color.

Color Ramp

A noise texture recolored through a fire ramp

Recolors the text by brightness through a gradient: dark parts take the left end of the gradient, bright parts the right end.

Property	What it does
Stage	Before Effects recolors the face first, and the other color effects build on it. After Effects recolors the finished text, outlines, bevel and glows included
Color Ramp Tex	The gradient texture. Tick Create Gradient to draw one in place, then Save Texture to keep it
Color Ramp Luminosity	Brightens the text before the lookup, which moves it along the gradient
Color Ramp Blend	0 keeps the original color, 1 is the full ramp
Tiling	Repeats the gradient across the brightness range
Scroll Speed	Scrolls through the gradient over time. 0 holds it still

Tiling and Scroll Speed need the ramp texture’s Wrap Mode set to Repeat, as the inspector reminds you.

The Color Ramp section, with its note for white text, the Create Gradient toggle and the wrap mode reminder

Hue Shift

A sunset gradient with its hues turned toward violet

Property	What it does
Hue Shift	Turns every hue around the color wheel, in degrees
Saturation	1 keeps it, 0 is grey, above 1 is more vivid
Brightness	1 keeps it

Greyscale

Property	What it does
Luminosity	Brightens or darkens the grey
Greyscale Tint	Tints the grey, for sepia or a single color
Blend	How much of the original color is replaced

Posterize

A smooth gradient reduced to a few flat steps

Reduces the text to a few flat color steps.

Property	What it does
Number of Colors	Steps per color channel
Posterize Gamma	Moves the steps toward the dark or the light end

Contrast and Brightness

A sunset gradient with its contrast raised

Property	What it does
Contrast	1 keeps it, 0 is flat grey, higher values push colors apart
Brightness	Added to every color, from -1 to 1

Shine

Blue letters with a white band of light across them

A band of light that sweeps across the whole text.

Property	What it does
Shine Color	The light’s color. Its alpha scales the shine
Shine Speed	How fast the band moves. A negative value sweeps the other way, and 0 holds it at Shine Location
Path Length	How far the band travels before it starts over. Above 1 it spends part of the loop off the text, which leaves a pause between sweeps
Shine Location	Where the band sits along its path
Rotate Angle(radians)	The sweep’s direction, in radians
Shine Width	How wide the band is
Shine Glow	How bright the band is
Shine Mask	A texture laid over the text: its alpha limits where the shine shows

Hologram

Cyan scan lines across see-through letters

Scan lines and a wider accent band scrolling across the whole text, which turns tinted and see-through between the lines.

Property	What it does
Hologram Color	The tint and the color of the lines. HDR, so it can glow. Its alpha scales the whole effect
Hologram Tint	How far the text is tinted toward Hologram Color
Hologram Rotation	The lines’ direction, in degrees
Hologram Base Alpha	The text’s opacity between the lines
Hologram Lines Per Rect Height	How many lines fit in the text’s height
Hologram Scroll Speed (lines/s)	How fast the lines scroll
Hologram Line Width	How thick each line is
Hologram Line Smoothness	How soft each line’s edges are
Hologram Line Glow	How bright the lines are
Hologram Accent Frequency	How many accent bands there are
Hologram Accent Speed	How fast they move
Hologram Accent Width	How wide they are
Hologram Accent Glow	How bright they are

Overlay Texture

Green letters with a scales texture laid over them

A texture laid over the whole text and multiplied with it, scrolling by default: stone, metal, scales, a starfield.

Property	What it does
Overlay Texture	The texture, with tiling and offset
Speed X Axis, Speed Y Axis	Scroll speed on each axis. Set both to 0 for a still pattern
Overlay Color	Tints the texture
Overlay Glow	Brightens the texture
Overlay Blend	How much of the texture is applied

While it scrolls, each letter starts at its own point in the scroll.

Inner Glow

Dark letters glowing orange from their edges inward

A glow inside the letters, from their edge inward.

Property	What it does
Blending	Additive brightens, Multiply darkens toward the glow color, Replace paints it on
Glow Color	HDR, so it can feed bloom
Glow Size	How far in the glow reaches
Smoothness	How much of that reach fades out
Attenuation	Fades the whole glow

It starts at the inner edge of the widest inside outline, or at the letter’s edge when there is none, so it never draws under an outline.

Outer Glow

Dark letters with a bright cyan glow around them, like a neon tube

A glow around the letters.

Property	What it does
Glow Color	HDR, so it can feed bloom
Glow Size	How far out the glow reaches
Smoothness	How much of that reach fades out
Attenuation	Fades the whole glow

It starts at the outer edge of the widest outside outline, or at the letter’s edge when there is none. It always adds light; for a dark halo, use a Drop Shadow with both offsets at 0.

Outline

White letters with a dark inner ring and an orange outer ring

Up to three outlines, each inside or outside the letter.

Property	What it does
Outline Position	Outside grows the outline out from the letter, Inside draws it within the letter
Smoothness Mode	Classic follows the letter’s exact shape. Smooth follows a blurred copy of it, for rounder corners
Outline Color	HDR, so it can feed bloom
Outline Thickness	How wide the outline is
Outline Smoothness	How soft its edge is
Outline 02	A second outline with the same properties
Outline 03	A third, shown once Outline 02 is on

Each outline’s thickness is measured from the letter’s edge, and Outline 02 draws over Outline 01, Outline 03 over both. For rings around rings, give Outline 01 the largest thickness and each next outline a smaller one.

The Outline section with Outline 02 on, below its first ring

Led

The words LED SIGN made of green and white dots

Draws the text as a dot matrix display: each dot is fully lit or off, and the letters are made of the lit dots.

Property	What it does
Grid	Text lays the dots over the text itself. Panel takes them from an LED Panel, see below
Core Color	The color at each dot’s center
Rim Color	The color at its edge
Core Size	How much of the dot the core covers
Leds Intensity	How bright the dots are, for bloom
Edge Dimming	How wide the band along the letters’ edges is where dots light partly, the way real displays smooth their fonts
Num Leds	Dots across the text’s width. Text grid only
Led Size	Each dot’s size within its cell. Text grid only
Roundness	1 is round, 0 is square. Text grid only
Softness	How soft each dot’s edge is. Text grid only
Variation	How much the dots’ brightness varies at random. Text grid only

The Led section of the material inspector with the Text grid

The dots are tinted by the text’s own color, so TextMeshPro color tags still color them. Outlines, the bevel and drop shadows follow the smooth letter shape around the dots.

LED Panel

The text only draws its lit dots, since unlit ones would show as boxes around each letter. For a full display with its unlit dots and background, add an LED Panel (Add Component → AllIn1TextShader → LED Panel) to a UI object behind the text:

Add the LED Panel to a UI object and size its rect to the display.
Add each text to its Texts list.
Set those texts’ Led Grid to Panel.
Put the texts below the panel in the Hierarchy, so they draw after it.

Property	What it does
Columns	Dots across the panel. The cells are square, so the rows follow from its height
Dot Size, Dot Roundness, Dot Softness, Dot Variation	The dot shape, for the panel and every text on it
Texts	The texts lit on this panel

The LED Panel component in the Inspector, with its Columns, dot settings and Texts list

The panel’s own material sets the background and the unlit dots’ colors. Because the grid belongs to the panel, a text moving across it lights dot by dot like a marquee, and dots outside the panel stay off, so the panel also crops the text.

The demo's LED Display: a score board drawn on an LED Panel

Color Gradient

A gradient across the whole text, or across each letter.

Property	What it does
Scope	Rect spreads one gradient over the whole text. Character repeats it in every letter
Blending Mode	Additive, Multiply or Replace
Blend	How much of the gradient is applied
Gradient	The gradient texture. Tick Create Gradient to draw one in place, then Save Texture to keep it
Gradient Origin	Where the gradient starts
Gradient Size	How long it is. Shorter is a harder transition
Angle	Its direction, in degrees
Gradient Speed	Scrolls it over time, looping. At 0 it holds still
Use Noise?	Picks the gradient’s color from a noise texture instead of from position
Noise Texture, X Speed, Y Speed	The noise and how fast it scrolls
Cutoff, Smoothness	Shape the noise into blotches with soft or hard edges

In Rect scope the gradient reads where the letters actually are, so a letter moved by an animation or a warp moves through the gradient. A still gradient keeps its end colors past the text’s edges; only a scrolling one wraps around.

Color Grading

A grey gradient tinted violet in the dark parts, red in the middle and gold in the light parts

Tints the dark, middle and light parts of the text separately.

Property	What it does
Light Color Tint	Multiplies the light parts
Mid Tone Color Tint	Multiplies the middle
Dark/Shadow Color Tint	Multiplies the dark parts
Mid Point	Where the middle sits on the brightness range

The three tints are HDR, so they can also brighten.

Alpha Effects

Alpha Cutoff

Property	What it does
Cutoff Value	Pixels less opaque than this are dropped instead of blended

It runs last, after every other effect.

Flicker

The text blinks off now and then, like a failing light. Each letter keeps its own timing.

Property	What it does
Flicker Percent	How much of the time the text is off
Flicker Frequency	How often it flickers
Flicker Alpha	The text’s opacity while it is off. 0 is fully gone

Fade

Letters dissolving through a noise pattern with a glowing orange edge

Dissolves the text through a texture laid over the whole text, with an optional burning edge.

Property	What it does
Fade Tex	The dissolve pattern. Dark parts go first
Fade Amount	0 is the whole text, 1 is fully dissolved. Animate this one
Fade Power	Bends the pattern toward its dark or its light parts
Fade Transition	How soft the dissolving edge is
Use Fade Burn Color?	Adds a colored band along the edge
Fade Burn Color	The band’s color, HDR
Fade Burn Width	The band’s width

This Fade is a shader effect driven by Fade Amount. The typewriter’s Fade is a different thing: it fades each letter in or out as it is revealed or hidden, see Motion Effects and Tags.

Mesh Effects

These move the letters’ shapes on the graphics card, continuously and with no setup. They are not the typewriter’s motion effects, which play per letter with timing, see Motion Effects and Tags.

Vertex Shake

Shakes every letter on each axis.

Property	What it does
Speed	Shake speed per axis
Shake Mult	Multiplies all three speeds
Shake Max Displacement	How far each axis moves
Shake Blend	Scales the whole shake

Wind

Bends the letters like grass in the wind. A wave travels along the line, gusts come and go, and each letter sways a little differently.

Property	What it does
Bend Amount	How far the letters bend, in degrees
Lean	A steady lean, in degrees, that the sway moves around
Speed	How fast the sway is
Wave Frequency	How quickly the sway changes from letter to letter along the line
Randomness	How much each letter’s timing differs
Gust Strength	How much the gusts change the sway
Anchor	The point each letter bends around: Bottom, Center or Top

Letters bend around their own axes, so Wind also works on text on a spline, warped or rotated text.

UV Effects

These distort the letters by moving where each pixel reads the font from, rather than by moving the letters.

Glitch

Letters with thin slices shifted sideways

Shifts thin horizontal slices of each letter sideways at random.

Property	What it does
Glitch Size	How finely each letter is cut. Higher values give more, thinner slices
Glitch Amount	How far they shift
Glitch Speed	How often they change

Pixelate

Turns the text into square blocks, on one grid for the whole text.

Property	What it does
Pixels Per Em	How many blocks fit in the font size. Lower is chunkier

The blocks stay square and aligned on rotated, curved and warped text. Because the grid belongs to the text rather than to each letter, a letter moved by an animation snaps block by block as it travels. Pixelate does not combine with LEDs.

Hand Drawn

Makes the letters wobble in steps, like animation drawn frame by frame.

Property	What it does
Num Steps	How many times per second the wobble changes
Hand Drawn Amount	How strong the wobble is
Hand Drawn Speed	How fast it moves

Wave

A ripple inside each letter, spreading from a point.

Property	What it does
Wave Amount	How many rings there are
Wave Speed	How fast they travel
Wave Strength	How far they push
Wave X Axis, Wave Y Axis	The ripple’s center within the letter, from 0 to 1

Round Wave

Letters rippled by a wave spreading from the center of the text

A ripple across the whole text, spreading from its center.

Property	What it does
Wave Strength	How far it pushes
Wave Speed	How fast it travels

Twist

Letters swirled around the middle of the text

Swirls the text around a point.

Property	What it does
Twist Amount	How far the swirl turns
Twist Pos X Axis, Twist Pos Y Axis	Its center over the text, from 0 to 1
Twist Radius	How far from the center it reaches
Stretch X, Stretch Y	Stretch the swirl’s area into an oval

Warp

A smooth, wobbling distortion inside each letter.

Property	What it does
Warp Strength	How far it pushes
Warp Speed	How fast it moves
Warp Scale	The size of the wobble

This Warp effect wobbles the inside of each letter. To bend the whole text into an arc, a flag or a circle, use the Warp component instead: Warp.

Distortion

Distorts the letters with a scrolling noise texture.

Property	What it does
Distortion Texture	The noise
Distortion Amount	How strong the distortion is
Scroll speed X, Scroll speed Y	How fast the noise scrolls
Movement Type	Continuous scrolls smoothly. Stepped jumps a few times per second
Frequency	With Stepped, how many jumps per second