Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '}' in line 69 with URP shader.

Question

I am a beginner in shader programming and I use URP. I wanted to create a raymarching cloud shader and keep getting this error - Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘}’ in line 69. I don’t know what to do and any help is very much appreciated. Here is the shader -

---

Shader "Custom/ProceduralCloudsMobile"
{
    Properties
    {
        _CloudColor("Cloud Color", Color) = (1,1,1,1)
        _ScatterColor("Scatter Color", Color) = (1,1,1,1)
        _ScatterAmount("Scatter Amount", Range(0, 1)) = 0.5
        _CloudDensity("Cloud Density", Range(0, 1)) = 0.5
        _CloudSharpness("Cloud Sharpness", Range(0, 1)) = 0.5
        _CloudSpeed("Cloud Speed", Range(0, 1)) = 0.5
        _CloudScale("Cloud Scale", Range(0, 10)) = 2
        _CloudHeight("Cloud Height", Range(0, 1000)) = 500
        _StepSize("Step Size", Range(0, 1)) = 0.01
        _MaxSteps("Max Steps", Range(0, 100)) = 50
    }

        SubShader
    {
        Tags { "RenderType" = "Opaque" }
        LOD 100

        HLSLINCLUDE
        #include "Packages/com.unity.render-pipelines.universal/ShaderLibrary/PBSLights.hlsl"

        float3 GetCloudNoise(float3 pos)
        {
            return cnoise(pos * _CloudScale * _CloudSharpness + _Time.y * _CloudSpeed);
        }

        float SampleCloudDensity(float3 pos)
        {
            return saturate(GetCloudNoise(pos).r * _CloudDensity);
        }

        float SampleScatterAmount(float3 pos)
        {
            return saturate(GetCloudNoise(pos).r * _ScatterAmount);
        }

        void surf(SurfaceOutput o, inout SurfaceInput input)
        {
            // Calculate 3D position of the current pixel in world space
            float3 worldPos = mul(unity_ObjectToWorld, float4(input.uv, 0, 1)).xyz;
            worldPos.y += _CloudHeight;

            // Cast a ray into the scene and sample the cloud density along the ray
            float3 rayDir = normalize(worldPos - _WorldSpaceCameraPos);
            float rayLength = length(worldPos - _WorldSpaceCameraPos);
            float3 rayPos = _WorldSpaceCameraPos;
            float cloudDensity = 0;
            for (int i = 0; i < _MaxSteps; i++)
            {
                cloudDensity += SampleCloudDensity(rayPos) * _StepSize;
                rayPos += rayDir * _StepSize;
                if (cloudDensity >= 1)
                    break;
            }

            // Calculate scatter amount at the final ray position
            float scatterAmount = SampleScatterAmount(rayPos);

            // Blend cloud color and scatter color based on density and scatter amount
            fixed4 cloudColor = lerp(_CloudColor, _ScatterColor, scatterAmount);
            o.Albedo = cloudColor.rgb * cloudDensity;
            o.Alpha = cloudDensity;
        }

        ENDHLSL
    }
}

`

Unilobed

Answer 1

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected
‘}’ in line 69 with URP shader.

This error tells you what the problem is. there is an unexpected ‘}’ on line 69.

---

brackets come in pairs and opening and closing pair of the same type. What that means is that you have an additional } where there shouldn’t be one. Check that you have the same number of opening and closing curly brackets, check that they are wrapped around the code as you would expect.

---

Remove any extraneous ones/ add any missing ones and the error will disappear.

Swarm

Answer 2

The main issue here is that you’re trying to use a surface shader within the universal RP, which is no longer supported - you need to be using a vertex/fragment shader. I don’t know too much about surface shaders and nothing about raymarching so can’t be too helpful regarding this part.

If you can refactor your shader to use vertex/fragment functions instead of surface then, as far as the compiler is concerned, it is expecting a Pass block. If you put everything from and including HLSLINCLUDE to ENDHLSL inside “Pass { … }” and add a URP-compatible tags block then this should fix the compiler error, or at least it did for me.

E.g.

Pass {
    Tags { "LightMode" = "UniversalForward" }
    HLSLPROGRAM
    ...
    <your refactored vert/frag shader code>
    ...
    ENDHLSL
}

I appreciate people trying to help but replies are just frustrating when you can see that the brackets are balanced and something else is going on here.

Billboard

Adding a pass with Tags { "LightMode" = "UniversalForward" } resolved my error, thanks!

– Very