Shader not working on all sprites in web export

Godot Version

4.5

Question

Hi,
First of all i don’t know much about shaders, reason why i have no clue why this is happening.

I have this outline shader that is a slightly modified version of something i found in the asset store.
The shader draws a pulsing outline around a sprite.

The shader works well when run from the editor on windows and on Android.
In the web export it works as expected but only on a subset of sprites, let me share screenshots for clarity:

Correct behaviour, all cards have an outline

Web behaviour, only the left card has the outline

The card scene is like this:
image

The sprite has this material:

The shader is this one (with credits to the main author :slight_smile: )
Note that i use instance parameters in case this matters.

//slightly customized
//2D outline shader 1.0.0
//Julian-Vos; MIT; 2024-04-01
//https://godotengine.org/asset-library/asset/2829

shader_type canvas_item;

uniform vec4 color : source_color = vec4(1.0);
uniform float width : hint_range(0, 100) = 1.0;
uniform int pattern : hint_range(0, 2) = 0; // diamond, circle, square
uniform bool inside = false;
uniform bool add_margins = true; // only useful when inside is false
uniform vec2 number_of_images = vec2(1.0); // number of horizontal and vertical images in the sprite sheet

varying flat vec4 modulate;

// CUSTOM
instance uniform bool enabled = false;
instance uniform float pulse_frequency : hint_range(0, 100) = 10.0;
// CUSTOM

void vertex() {
	// CUSTOM
	if(enabled) {
	// CUSTOM
		modulate = COLOR;
		if (add_margins) {
			if ((UV.x <= 0.0 || UV.x >= 1.0) && (UV.y <= 0.0 || UV.y >= 1.0)) {
				VERTEX += (UV * 2.0 - 1.0) * width;
			} else {
				VERTEX += sign(VERTEX) * width; // replace sign(VERTEX) by (sign(VERTEX) * 2.0 - 1.0) if your AnimatedSprite2D isn't Centered
			}
		}
	}	
}

bool hasContraryNeighbour(vec2 uv, vec2 texture_pixel_size, vec2 image_top_left, vec2 image_bottom_right, sampler2D texture) {
	for (float i = -ceil(width); i <= ceil(width); i++) {
		float x = abs(i) > width ? width * sign(i) : i;
		float offset;

		if (pattern == 0) {
			offset = width - abs(x);
		} else if (pattern == 1) {
			offset = floor(sqrt(pow(width + 0.5, 2) - x * x));
		} else if (pattern == 2) {
			offset = width;
		}

		for (float j = -ceil(offset); j <= ceil(offset); j++) {
			float y = abs(j) > offset ? offset * sign(j) : j;
			vec2 xy = uv + texture_pixel_size * vec2(x, y);

			if ((xy != clamp(xy, image_top_left, image_bottom_right) || texture(texture, xy).a <= 0.0) == inside) {
				return true;
			}
		}
	}

	return false;
}

void fragment() {
	// CUSTOM
	if(enabled) {
	// CUSTOM
		vec2 uv = UV;
		vec2 image_top_left = floor(uv * number_of_images) / number_of_images;
		vec2 image_bottom_right = image_top_left + vec2(1.0) / number_of_images;

		if (add_margins) {
			vec2 texture_pixel_size = vec2(1.0) / (vec2(1.0) / TEXTURE_PIXEL_SIZE + vec2(width * 2.0) * number_of_images);

			uv = (uv - texture_pixel_size * width - image_top_left) * TEXTURE_PIXEL_SIZE / texture_pixel_size + image_top_left;

			if (uv != clamp(uv, image_top_left, image_bottom_right)) {
				COLOR.a = 0.0;
			} else {
				COLOR = texture(TEXTURE, uv) * modulate;
			}
		} else {
			COLOR = texture(TEXTURE, uv) * modulate;
		}

		if ((COLOR.a > 0.0) == inside && hasContraryNeighbour(uv, TEXTURE_PIXEL_SIZE, image_top_left, image_bottom_right, TEXTURE)) {
			COLOR.rgb = inside ? mix(COLOR.rgb, color.rgb * modulate.rgb, color.a * modulate.a) : color.rgb * modulate.rgb;

			//COLOR.a += (1.0 - COLOR.a) * color.a * modulate.a;
			COLOR.a = clamp(sin(TIME * pulse_frequency)/2.0 + 1.0, 0.0, 1.0);
		}
	}
}

Ok after going back and forth with WhateverGPT giving me solutions to false problems but also interesting investigation ideas, I (or we if you prefer) found the issue:

the instance uniforms in the shader

I needed those to be able to selectively activate the shader on specific sprites but sadly that doesn’t work well with the web export. Why? I have no idea.

WebGL limitations says WhateverGPT.
“WebGL has a known limitation with instance uniform and multiple objects sharing a ShaderMaterial.” :person_shrugging:

The solution was to make the material “local to scene” and use normal uniforms instead.

Thank you for your attention to this matter! (cit.)