Drive the hero cutout from a single camera-to-target ray

Replace the multi-sample silhouette probe with one camera->target raycast: any world geometry in the line of sight arms the cut, a clear line keeps occluders solid. The shader carves a world-space cone (apex at the camera, radius growing toward the target) so the screen-space hole stays a constant size regardless of occluder depth, with a soft radial fade plus a symmetric axial fade around the target so geometry just behind the player feathers out instead of hard-cutting along a plane. Anything well past the target stays solid. Also suppresses the deoccluder pull-in so the camera holds its orbit distance and the cut takes over.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Assets/Unused/HeroCutout.hlsl

@@ -1,20 +1,34 @@
 #ifndef HERO_CUTOUT_INCLUDED
 #define HERO_CUTOUT_INCLUDED
 
-// Screen-space radial "hero cutout": clips occluder fragments that sit inside a circle around the
-// on-screen player AND in front of it, punching a clean see-through hole toward the character.
+// World-space "hero cutout": clips occluder fragments that lie inside a CONE running from the camera
+// (apex) to the player (target). Everything BETWEEN the camera and the target within the cone is
+// punched see-through; geometry well behind the target stays solid - so a wall the player stands in
+// front of still renders completely normally. The "between vs. behind" split is purely geometric
+// (position along the camera->target axis), not a depth-buffer bias.
 //
-// These two globals are driven every frame by HeroCutout.cs (Shader.SetGlobalVector). They live
-// OUTSIDE UnityPerMaterial, so the SRP Batcher is unaffected. When the effect is disabled
-// (_HeroCutoutDepthOn.y < 0.5, also the zero-initialised default) ApplyHeroCutout early-outs and the
-// shader renders exactly like URP/Lit.
-//   _HeroCutoutPosRadius : xy = hero viewport pos (0..1, bottom-left), z = radius, w = feather
-//                          radius/feather are in normalized viewport-HEIGHT units
-//   _HeroCutoutDepthOn   : x = hero eye-space depth (incl. bias), y = enabled (0/1)
-float4 _HeroCutoutPosRadius;
-float4 _HeroCutoutDepthOn;
+// That far split is FEATHERED on BOTH sides, never a hard plane: the cut fades out smoothly across a
+// band of +/- 'depthFeather' metres AROUND the target. So an occluder that crosses the player's depth
+// (a shelf board or wall running away from the camera) keeps fading just behind the player instead of
+// snapping to solid - no hard straight cut line where a depth plane would slice the surface. Only
+// geometry beyond that band (more than depthFeather behind the target) stays fully solid.
+//
+// Why a cone and not a cylinder: the cone's radius grows linearly with distance from the camera
+// (radius = paramRadius * along/len), so its *screen-space* footprint is constant regardless of how
+// far the occluder sits from the camera. A constant-world-radius cylinder would project bigger near
+// the lens and smaller near the target - a distorted hole. paramRadius is therefore the radius at the
+// target plane (metres); the cone tapers to 0 at the camera apex.
+//
+// Driven every frame by HeroCutout.cs (Shader.SetGlobalVector). These globals live OUTSIDE
+// UnityPerMaterial, so the SRP Batcher is unaffected. When disabled (_HeroCutoutTarget.w < 0.5, also
+// the zero-initialised default) ApplyHeroCutout early-outs and the shader renders exactly like URP/Lit.
+//   _HeroCutoutTarget : xyz = player/target world position, w = enabled (0/1)
+//   _HeroCutoutParams : x = cone radius at the target plane (m), y = edge feather at the target plane (m),
+//                       z = depth feather: half-width (m) of the soft fade band straddling the target
+float4 _HeroCutoutTarget;
+float4 _HeroCutoutParams;
 
-// Interleaved-gradient noise -> screen-door dither, gives the circle a soft edge with no extra
+// Interleaved-gradient noise -> screen-door dither, gives the cone wall a soft edge with no extra
 // textures or includes.
 float HeroCutoutDither(float2 positionSS)
 {
@@ -23,24 +37,43 @@ float HeroCutoutDither(float2 positionSS)
 
 void ApplyHeroCutout(float4 positionCS)
 {
-    if (_HeroCutoutDepthOn.y < 0.5)
+    if (_HeroCutoutTarget.w < 0.5)
         return;
 
-    // Flip-correct screen UV (matches Camera.WorldToViewportPoint's bottom-left convention).
-    float2 uv = GetNormalizedScreenSpaceUV(positionCS);
-    float2 delta = uv - _HeroCutoutPosRadius.xy;
-    delta.x *= _ScreenParams.x / max(_ScreenParams.y, 1.0); // aspect-correct -> a round circle
-    float dist = length(delta);
+    // Reconstruct this fragment's world position from screen UV + device depth.
+    float2 screenUV = GetNormalizedScreenSpaceUV(positionCS);
+    float3 posWS = ComputeWorldSpacePosition(screenUV, positionCS.z, UNITY_MATRIX_I_VP);
 
-    float radius = _HeroCutoutPosRadius.z;
-    float feather = max(_HeroCutoutPosRadius.w, 1e-4);
-    float inside = 1.0 - smoothstep(radius - feather, radius, dist); // 1 inside, 0 outside
+    float3 camPos = _WorldSpaceCameraPos.xyz;
+    float3 axis = _HeroCutoutTarget.xyz - camPos;
+    float len = length(axis);
+    if (len < 1e-4)
+        return;
+    float3 dir = axis / len;
 
-    // Only hole geometry between the camera and the hero; anything at/behind the player stays solid.
-    float eyeDepth = LinearEyeDepth(positionCS.z, _ZBufferParams);
-    float inFront = step(eyeDepth, _HeroCutoutDepthOn.x);
+    // Distance along the camera->target axis (metres from the camera).
+    float along = dot(posWS - camPos, dir);
+    float depthFeather = max(_HeroCutoutParams.z, 1e-4);
+    if (along <= 0.0 || along >= len + depthFeather) // behind the camera, or well behind the target -> solid
+        return;
 
-    float cut = inside * inFront;
+    // Perpendicular distance to the axis -> the cone test.
+    float3 closest = camPos + dir * along;
+    float radial = length(posWS - closest);
+
+    // Cone: radius scales with distance from the camera (apex), so the on-screen hole stays the same
+    // size at every occluder depth. t in (0,1]: 0 at the camera, 1 at the target plane.
+    float t = along / len;
+    float radius = _HeroCutoutParams.x * t;
+    float feather = max(_HeroCutoutParams.y * t, 1e-4);
+    float radialCut = 1.0 - smoothstep(radius - feather, radius, radial); // 1 inside the cone, 0 outside
+
+    // Soft depth cap instead of a hard plane at the target: the cut fades out across a band straddling
+    // the target - full strength up to (len - depthFeather), gone by (len + depthFeather). So an occluder
+    // crossing the player's depth keeps fading just behind them rather than showing a hard straight edge.
+    float axialCut = 1.0 - smoothstep(len - depthFeather, len + depthFeather, along);
+
+    float cut = radialCut * axialCut;
     clip(HeroCutoutDither(positionCS.xy) - cut);
 }
 #endif