Question by DOOManiac · Jul 12, 2017 at 05:57 PM · shaders effects

Need help getting started with a specific shader idea

I've been working on my Unity game for the past few months, and it is time to make it pretty! Great.

Problem is, I've been struggling with Shaders. I've read up on them and watched several excellent videos on YouTube, and I understand the basics; how they work and what they do; the vertex and frag functions; etc.

I just don't know where to start to write my own - to get the effect I want instead of using what is already there.

I have a "force field" like block in my game, and I would like it to look a lot like the landing pads in Elite: Dangerous. That is, two layers: a slightly orange fade from the bottom to completely transparent at the top - along with rows of harder "beams" every ___ units that gently animate downward.

Here's a picture of the effect I'm after: