DaveTheCoder
rich text effect lacks the complexity i require.
i ended up going with a different route when i couldnt make this work. i made 3 RichTextlabels, the regular one, and the other two with my shader effects as materials. all three rich text labels have the same text, but a script with a for loop checks for words i want shaded, and in the regular script, makes the to-be-shaded word transparent, meanwhile in the shaded richtextlabel every word EXCEPT the word i want shaded transparent, so spacing matches. the resulting effect fits my end goal perfectly. 