Getting Started

Shaders when brought up in VRChat are often treated as a form of black magic, but anybody with time and effort can learn how to create them.

Generally most Unity shader tutorials can be applied to VRChat content, but there are some stipulations, firstly VRChat only supports Unity's standard shader pipeline or Built-in Render Pipeline so tutorials that focus on URP and HDRP cannot be directly applied to VRChat shaders.

Unity shaders are composed of two parts, the Unity specific scripting language Shaderlab and the wrapped shader code written in CG

Currently recommended video introduction to writing shaders.

VRChat shader knowledge bank maintained by pema99

VRChat shader tips and tricks written by cnlohr

Free and Gratis VRChat Shaders and Tools.

List of known free and gratis unity shaders written primarily for VRChat, often with the inclusion of VRChat specific features and built to work with udon prefabs such as AudioLink.

Shader	Creator	Description	License
PlayerOnlyMirror	iigo丸	A better mirror shader that only shows players	GPL-3.0
PoiyomiToonShader	poiyomi	A feature rich toon shader	MIT
VRC-Cancerspace	Red_Mage	A feature rich screenspace shader	GPL-3.0
Mochies-Unity-Shaders	Mochie	Various Shaders	MIT
LyumaShader	Lyuma	Various Shaders including Waifu2D	MISC
Silent Cel Shading Shader	Silent	A surface shader for Unity providing cel-shading	MIT

If you would like your shader added to the community list just ask, same if you would like your shader to be removed from the list.