Shader Tools Window

The Shader Tools Window is the front door to Genesis. It surfaces every other tool (AO Baker, Ramp Creator, Migration, Installer, and more) plus real-time diagnostics: variant counts, keyword usage, URP setting warnings, and material health. Keep it docked while iterating — issues surface here before they ship.

When to use it

Every Genesis project — keep it open while authoring.
Triage when a material does not render correctly; diagnostics often pinpoint a missing Renderer Feature or texture.
Pre-build review — variant counts, keyword usage, and stripped-feature warnings are surfaced here.

Opening the tool

Window → Genesis → Shader Tools. The shortcut Ctrl+Shift+G opens it from anywhere.

Screenshot

The Shader Tools Window docked in the editor, showing the Diagnostics tab with green/yellow/red status rows, the tabbed Tools and Project Actions tabs, and the pinned-diagnostics status bar at the top.

tools/shader-tools-window/shader-tools-window.png

Workflow

Diagnostics tab. Read top to bottom — green checks mean ready, yellow warnings mean degraded, red means a feature will not render.
Tools tab. A launcher grid for every Genesis utility — click a card to open the tool, or right-click to dock it in this window’s tabbed group.
Project Actions tab. Bulk operations that touch many assets: migrate all URP Lit materials, strip unused keywords, regenerate ramp atlases, and so on.
(Optional) Pin diagnostics that matter to your team — they appear in the top status bar even when the window is minimized.

Settings

Inspector label	Shader property	Type	Default	Description
Live Refresh	Live Refresh	Bool	true	Re-evaluate diagnostics whenever a relevant asset changes. Cheap; keep on.
Warn on Variant Budget	Warn on Variant Budget	Int	8192	Flag yellow when the project exceeds this many compiled variants.
Show Stripped Features	Show Stripped Features	Bool	true	Surface materials still referencing features the Feature Configurator stripped.
Pinned Diagnostics	Pinned Diagnostics	String[]	[]	Diagnostics promoted to the always-visible status bar.

Tips & gotchas

Keep it docked. Diagnostics are live — you will catch a missing Depth Texture the moment you toggle a feature that needs it.
The window picks up changes from GraphicsSettings, the URP asset, the Renderer Data asset, and every Genesis material — no manual refresh needed.
The Tools tab is extensible. Studios with custom Genesis tools can register them via [GenesisTool] and they appear in the same grid.

When an outline or module appears to be missing, check the Diagnostics panel first — it usually points straight at the missing renderer setting.