Unity/HLSL: Odd results when trying to use different parts of texture atlas depending on surface normal - unity3d

Question

I'm new to 3D code and writing shaders so I'm probably doing something stupid here. I'm working on a simple Minecraft clone just to learn Unity, and I thought the easiest way to texture the ground would be to use a texture atlas with a grass + dirt texture and use a shader to choose which part of the atlas to get the texture from depending on the surface normal. i.e. for the face of a cube that points upwards, the grass texture will be used, and for all other faces the dirt texture will be used. The texture looks like this:
In my shader, if I do the following, I get the dirt texture on every face as expected:
float y = (IN.uv_MainTex.y / 2.0f);
float2 uv = {IN.uv_MainTex.x, y};
fixed4 c = tex2D (_MainTex, uv) * _Color;
o.Albedo = c.rgb;
If I use the same code but always add 0.5f to y to get the top half, i.e. float y = (IN.uv_MainTex.y / 2.0f) + 0.5f; I get the grass texture everywhere as expected:
But when I try to set y based on the normal, i.e. float y = (IN.uv_MainTex.y / 2.0f) + floor(IN.worldNormal.y) * 0.5f; I get this weird result where the top face is mostly grass but with parts of the dirt texture showing in diagonal lines:
Is IN.worldNormal the right normal to be using, or do I need to transform it into some other space? Or is the problem with how I'm using floor(), maybe? Any advice is appreciated.
Full shader code:
Shader "Custom/GroundShader"
{
Properties
{
_Color ("Color", Color) = (1,1,1,1)
_MainTex ("Albedo (RGB)", 2D) = "white" {}
_Glossiness ("Smoothness", Range(0,1)) = 0.5
_Metallic ("Metallic", Range(0,1)) = 0.0
}
SubShader
{
Tags { "RenderType"="Opaque" }
LOD 200
CGPROGRAM
// Physically based Standard lighting model, and enable shadows on all light types
#pragma surface surf Standard fullforwardshadows
// Use shader model 3.0 target, to get nicer looking lighting
#pragma target 3.0
sampler2D _MainTex;
struct Input
{
float2 uv_MainTex;
float3 worldNormal;
};
half _Glossiness;
half _Metallic;
fixed4 _Color;
// Add instancing support for this shader. You need to check 'Enable Instancing' on materials that use the shader.
// See https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/GPUInstancing.html for more information about instancing.
// #pragma instancing_options assumeuniformscaling
UNITY_INSTANCING_BUFFER_START(Props)
// put more per-instance properties here
UNITY_INSTANCING_BUFFER_END(Props)
void surf (Input IN, inout SurfaceOutputStandard o)
{
float y = (IN.uv_MainTex.y / 2.0f) + floor(IN.worldNormal.y) * 0.5f;
float2 uv = {IN.uv_MainTex.x, y};
// Albedo comes from a texture tinted by color
fixed4 c = tex2D (_MainTex, uv) * _Color;
o.Albedo = c.rgb;
// Metallic and smoothness come from slider variables
o.Metallic = _Metallic;
o.Smoothness = _Glossiness;
o.Alpha = c.a;
}
ENDCG
}
FallBack "Diffuse"
}

Answer 1

Edit: the original answer is below, but I was approaching this problem the wrong way. The correct way to do this is just to set the UVs of the mesh using the Mesh.uv property. There is no need to use a shader in this case.
Copying an answer I got from Namey5 on the Unity forum:
This looks to be a precision issue (potentially from vertex normal
interpolation). There are probably smarter ways to do this, but as a
simple fix you could just add a small bias to the normal, i.e;
float y = (IN.uv_MainTex.y / 2.0f) + floor (IN.worldNormal.y + 0.01) * 0.5f;
I modified this slightly to float y = (IN.uv_MainTex.y / 2.0f) + floor (IN.worldNormal.y * 1.1f) * 0.5f; This ensures the bottom face also shows the dirt texture because the normal will get floored down to -2 instead of -1.