In previous versions of Unity, the only way to create specialized Materials was to program a custom shader or use an outside plugin. With the release of 2018, Unity now has its own native Shader Graph, which can be used to build visually complex Materials using nodes.
Unlike the process of writing code, saving, compiling, and testing in the Editor, the Shader Graph shows you what’s happening to the Material in real-time, allowing you to make changes and experiment on the fly.