TextMesh Pro: Working with Material Presets

This tutorial has been verified using Unity 2019.4 LTS and TextMeshPro v2.1.1

Much like other GameObjects, text created with TextMesh Pro can have multiple Materials applied to it. These Materials are powered behind the scenes by a Shader and determine the look of your text in ways that ordinary font weights can’t.

In this tutorial, we will apply a new Material preset to a Font Asset.

Materials allow for different variations of the same Font Asset without requiring modifications to the existing font atlas.

A Material should be assigned to every new Font Asset with the naming convention [Font Name]_[Type]. We can navigate to the Material in the project Hierarchy, or navigate to our Font Asset’s Material via the following steps:

1. Click the Font Asset and navigate to Atlas & Material, then double-click on Material (Figure 01).

Figure 01: A look at our Font Asset Material in the Inspector

Notice how, by default, this Material uses the TextMeshPro/Mobile/Distance Field, which is a lightweight Shader for use in mobile environments or other scenarios where optimization is key.

We will work with the Shader for desktop and console applications to explore the available options.

Change the Shader to TextMeshPro/Distance Field. This is the Shader we will work with (Figure 02).

Figure 02: Switching the Shader on our Font Asset Material

The Shader has five main components:

Face: Defines the color of the font and whether a Texture is applied to its face

Outline: Applies a similar treatment to the font’s outlines and edges

Underlay: Applies a drop shadow to the font

Lighting: Allows the font to interact with light

Glow: Provides an outer or inner glow to the font

2. Duplicate the selected Material and rename it something unique. This is the version we will modify if we need to revert to our default Material. Alternatively, navigate to the Material within the Inspector, right-click on the cog (⚙), and select Create Material Preset.

3. Click on the Font Asset in either the project Hierarchy or Inspector, click the three dot icon in the upper right of the Inspector, and switch to Debug (Figure 03).

Figure 03: Switching the Inspector to Debug mode

4. Now that the Material slot is not grayed out, you can drag and drop our new unique Material into the Material slot.

For a challenge, try creating several Material presets to represent current weather conditions — much like those on a meteorologist forecast.

We have learned how to change the Shader used by the Material on our Font Asset. We also have learned how to create a Material Preset so we can experiment without changing our default Material. By altering the shader components on our new Material Preset we can easily create new and unique styles and effects for use in our projects.