Creating a basic Standard Shader

In Unity, when we create a game object, we then attach additional functionality through the use of components. In fact, every game object is required to have a Transform component; there are a number of components included in Unity already, and we create components of our own when we write scripts that extend from MonoBehaviour. 

All the objects that are part of a game contain a number of components that affect their look and behavior. While scripts determine how objects should behave, renderers decide how they should appear on the screen. Unity comes with several renderers, depending on the type of object that we are trying to visualize; every 3D model typically has a MeshRenderer component attached to it. An object should have only one renderer, but the renderer itself can contain several materials. Each material is a wrapper for a single shader, the final ring in the food chain of 3D graphics. The relationships between these components can be seen in the following diagram:

Understanding the difference between these components is essential for understanding how shaders work.