Materials and shadersMaterials and shaders

Animate a material to change every node that uses it. Use an instance uniform when each node needs its own shader value.

Examples use the global Tweens class in a node script, with targets inside the scene tree. mesh is a MeshInstance3D using the materials shown.

Choose an owner

A material isn’t in the scene tree, so its tweens take an owner as the third argument. A node ends playback when it leaves the tree; the tree keeps it running until shutdown:

var smooth := Tweens.material_roughness(0.2, 1.0)
Tweens.play(material, smooth, mesh)       # Ends when mesh leaves the tree.
Tweens.play(material, smooth, get_tree()) # Ends when the tree shuts down.

The tween keeps animating this material, even if the mesh switches to another one.

Material properties

The material catalog covers albedo, roughness, emission, UVs, and more on BaseMaterial3D. Every node using a material shows its tweens, so to animate one node alone, duplicate the material once during setup:

var unique: StandardMaterial3D = shared.duplicate()
mesh.material_override = unique
Tweens.play(unique, Tweens.material_albedo_color(Color.RED, 1.0), mesh)

Enable the feature first

Tweens change values, not material flags. Fading alpha needs transparency enabled; emission and normal maps need their own flags.

Shader uniforms

For a shader declaring uniform float dissolve = 0.25;:

Tweens.play(shader_material, Tweens.shader_parameter(&"dissolve", 1.0, 0.5), mesh)

This changes the uniform for every node using the material. Names are case-sensitive, and the endpoint’s type must match the uniform: 1.0 for a float, 1 for an int, Color for a color, and the matching vector type for a vector.

Instance uniforms

For a shader declaring instance uniform float pulse = 0.25;:

Godot's Tween

mesh.create_tween().tween_method(
    func(value: float) -> void: mesh.set_instance_shader_parameter(&"pulse", value),
    0.25, 1.0, 0.5)

tweens.gd

Tweens.play(mesh, Tweens.instance_shader_parameter(&"pulse", 1.0, 0.5))

Only this node’s value changes, even when it shares the material. The tween starts from the current value or the shader’s default, where Godot’s version needs it written out.

Keep bindings stable

Editing or replacing a bound shader ends playback with FAILED, and so does swapping the material under an instance uniform. Start a new tween after the change. Reading a shader’s default value needs a working renderer.

Material and uniform referenceSupported types, validation, defaults, and restoring overrides.