How to Change Rendering mode in unity with C# script

In unity, we often required to change Shader rendering mode via script or through programming. Unfortunately, there is no single C# API or function available that directly applies to render mode changes in the material. So, here is the way to change rendering mode with code, thanks to official documentation provided by Unity:

Change Rendering Mode with C# Script

First of all, let's create a script and define the Rendering Mode enum. In the enum, we can define all the available rendering modes like opaque, cutout, fade, and transparent.

 public enum RenderingMode

    {

        Opaque,

        Cutout,

        Fade,   

        Transparent

        

    }

Now let's make a method that accepts Material and the Rendering mode as a parameter.

The material parameter defines the input material whose rendering mode we want to change while the rendering mode parameter is the blend mode that we want to set on the material like Transparent, fad, cutout, or opaque.

 public void SetupMaterialWithBlendMode(Material material, RenderingMode renderingMode)

    {

        switch (renderingMode)

        {

            case RenderingMode.Opaque:

                material.SetOverrideTag("RenderType", "");

                material.SetInt("_BlendOp", (int)UnityEngine.Rendering.BlendOp.Add);

                material.SetInt("_SrcBlend", (int)UnityEngine.Rendering.BlendMode.One);

                material.SetInt("_DstBlend", (int)UnityEngine.Rendering.BlendMode.Zero);

                material.SetInt("_ZWrite", 1);

                material.DisableKeyword("_ALPHATEST_ON");

                material.DisableKeyword("_ALPHABLEND_ON");

                material.DisableKeyword("_ALPHAPREMULTIPLY_ON");

                material.DisableKeyword("_ALPHAMODULATE_ON");

                material.renderQueue = -1;

                break;

            case RenderingMode.Cutout:

                material.SetOverrideTag("RenderType", "TransparentCutout");

                material.SetInt("_BlendOp", (int)UnityEngine.Rendering.BlendOp.Add);

                material.SetInt("_SrcBlend", (int)UnityEngine.Rendering.BlendMode.One);

                material.SetInt("_DstBlend", (int)UnityEngine.Rendering.BlendMode.Zero);

                material.SetInt("_ZWrite", 1);

                material.EnableKeyword("_ALPHATEST_ON");

                material.DisableKeyword("_ALPHABLEND_ON");

                material.DisableKeyword("_ALPHAPREMULTIPLY_ON");

                material.DisableKeyword("_ALPHAMODULATE_ON");

                material.renderQueue = (int)UnityEngine.Rendering.RenderQueue.AlphaTest;

                break;

            case RenderingMode.Fade:

                material.SetOverrideTag("RenderType", "Transparent");

                material.SetInt("_BlendOp", (int)UnityEngine.Rendering.BlendOp.Add);

                material.SetInt("_SrcBlend", (int)UnityEngine.Rendering.BlendMode.SrcAlpha);

                material.SetInt("_DstBlend", (int)UnityEngine.Rendering.BlendMode.OneMinusSrcAlpha);

                material.SetInt("_ZWrite", 0);

                material.DisableKeyword("_ALPHATEST_ON");

                material.EnableKeyword("_ALPHABLEND_ON");

                material.DisableKeyword("_ALPHAPREMULTIPLY_ON");

                material.DisableKeyword("_ALPHAMODULATE_ON");

                material.renderQueue = (int)UnityEngine.Rendering.RenderQueue.Transparent;

                break;

            case RenderingMode.Transparent:

                material.SetOverrideTag("RenderType", "Transparent");

                material.SetInt("_BlendOp", (int)UnityEngine.Rendering.BlendOp.Add);

                material.SetInt("_SrcBlend", (int)UnityEngine.Rendering.BlendMode.One);

                material.SetInt("_DstBlend", (int)UnityEngine.Rendering.BlendMode.OneMinusSrcAlpha);

                material.SetInt("_ZWrite", 0);

                material.DisableKeyword("_ALPHATEST_ON");

                material.DisableKeyword("_ALPHABLEND_ON");

                material.EnableKeyword("_ALPHAPREMULTIPLY_ON");

                material.DisableKeyword("_ALPHAMODULATE_ON");

                material.renderQueue = (int)UnityEngine.Rendering.RenderQueue.Transparent;

                break;

        }

    }

In the above code snippet, you only need to pass the material and Rendering Mode. Like this:

  SetupMaterialWithBlendMode(matInput, renderingModeInput);

Here is the full script available

In the above code snippet, there are different shaderLab commands used you can find the detail about the commands here on Unity's official docs.