UNITY FOR GAMES E-BOOK

THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO LIGHTING IN THE

HIGH DEFINITION
RENDER PIPELINE
(HDRP)
2 0 2 0 LT S E D I T I O N
Contents

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

System requirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Unity Hub. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Package Manager installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

HDRP Sample Scene. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

More HDRP sample content. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Project Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Graphics Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Quality Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Optimizing HDRP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Enabling HDRP features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Forward vs Deferred rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Customizing the render path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

More about rendering paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Forward rendering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Deferred shading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Anti-aliasing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Multisample anti-aliasing (MSAA). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Post-processing Anti-aliasing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Volumes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Local and Global. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Volume Overrides. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Overrides workflow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Blending and priority. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Exposure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Understanding exposure value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Exposure value formula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Exposure override. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Fixed mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Curve Mapping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Physical Camera. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Additional Physical Camera parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Lights. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Light types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Shapes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Color and temperature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Additional properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Light Layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Units. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

IES Profiles and Cookies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

HDRI Sky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Gradient Sky. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Global fog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Volumetric Lighting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Local Volumetric Fog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Shadows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Shadow maps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Shadow Cascades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Micro shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Reflections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Screen Space Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Reflection Probes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Planar Reflection Probe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Sky reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Reflection hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Reflection Proxy Volumes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Real-time lighting effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Screen Space Ambient Occlusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Screen Space Global Illumination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Screen Space Refraction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Post-processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Post-processing overrides. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Tonemapping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Shadows, Midtones, Highlights. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Bloom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Depth of Field. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

White Balance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Color Adjustments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Channel Mixer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Lens Distortion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Vignette. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Motion Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Rendering Debugger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Ray tracing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Setup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Overrides. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Next steps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
 Introduction
It all begins with light.

Unity built the High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP) to help creators like you
realize your vision, tapping the power of high-end PC or console hardware to
reach new levels of graphical realism.

This guide was created to guide existing Unity artists and developers in
exploring HDRP’s physically based lighting techniques. HDRP represents a
technological advance in Unity’s real-time rendering, allowing you to work with
light just as it behaves in the real world.

Do you want to render a lush rainforest landscape with natural sunlight? Or

is the concrete jungle of the big city – brimming with neon emissive lighting –
more your style? With HDRP, you can paint your scene levels with the brush of
a cinematographer.

Build game environments that transport your players to places, anywhere from
the familiar to fantastical.

Let’s get started with HDRP and Unity.

Book of the Dead used HDRP to create its atmospheric lighting.

© 2021 Unity Technologies 5 of 83 | unity.com

 HDRP lighting overview
HDRP extends Unity’s existing lighting system with a variety
of features to make rendering your scene more closely resemble
real-world lighting:

— Physical light units and exposure: HDRP uses real-world lighting

intensities and units. Match the specs from known light sources, and set
exposures using physical cameras.

— Advanced lighting: Take control over light placement with additional

shape options for spot and area lights. Use Light Layers to limit the
influence of lights onto specific meshes. Apply real-time effects like
Screen Space Global Illumination and Screen Space Refraction.

— Skyscapes: Generate natural-looking skies with varied techniques.

Use the Physically Based Sky system to simulate planetary atmosphere
procedurally, or apply HDRIs as cubemap textures.

— Fog: Add depth and dimension to your scenes with fog. Enable volumetrics
to integrate fog effects with your foreground objects and render cinematic
shafts of light. Maintain per-light control of volumetric light and shadows
and use the Local Volumetric Fog component for fine control of fog density
with a 3D mask texture.

— Volume system: HDRP features an intuitive system that lets you block
out different lighting effects and settings based on camera location or by
priority. Layer and blend volumes to allow expert-level control over every
square meter of your scene.

— Post-processing: HDRP post-processing is controlled by a series of

Volume Overrides on top of the existing Volume system. Add anti-aliasing,
tonemapping, color grading, bloom, depth of field, and a host of other
effects.

— Advanced shadows: HDRP offers advanced artistic and performance

control over shadows. Modify their tint, filtering, resolution, memory
budget, and update modes. Accentuate small details and additional depth
with contact shadows and micro shadows.

— Advanced reflections: Reflective surfaces can use several techniques

to render. Reflection Probes offer a traditional reflection mapping
approach,with Planar Reflection Probes giving you more advanced options
for flat surfaces. Screen-space reflection (SSR) adds a real-time technique
using the depth buffer.

Extensibility: HDRP is built on Unity’s Scriptable Render Pipeline. Experienced

technical artists and graphics programmers can extend the pipeline even
beyond what’s available out of the box.

Completely new to HDRP? Make sure you read Getting started with the High
Definition Render Pipeline.

© 2021 Unity Technologies 6 of 83 | unity.com

 Installation
Unity 2020 LTS and above includes the HDRP package with the installation to
ensure that you’re always running on the latest verified graphics code. When
you install the most recent Unity release, it also installs the corresponding
version of HDRP.

HDRP package version Compatible Unity version

12.x 2021.2

11.x 2021.1

10.x 2020.3 or Long Term Support (used in this guide)

Tying the HDRP graphics packages to a specific Unity release helps ensure
compatibility. However, you can also switch to a custom version of HDRP by
overriding the manifest file.

System requirements

HRDP is currently compatible with the following target platforms:

— Windows and Windows Store, with DirectX 11 or DirectX 12 and Shader

Model 5.0

— Modern consoles (minimum Sony PlayStation 4 or Microsoft Xbox One)

— MacOS (minimum version 10.13) using Metal graphics

— Linux and Windows platforms with Vulkan

HDRP only works on console and desktop platforms that support compute
shaders. HDRP does not support OpenGL or OpenGL ES devices. Refer to the
documentation for more complete requirements and compatibility information.

See Virtual Reality in the High Definition Render Pipeline to learn about
supported VR Platforms and devices.

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 Unity Hub

The Unity Hub is the simplest way to set up an HDRP project.

To get started, create a new Project. Select 3D Sample Scene (HDRP) from the
available templates (called High Definition RP in older versions of the Hub).
This imports the HDRP package with some example presets.

Select the 3D Sample Scene (HDRP) template.

Load the SampleScene. You should see something like this:

3D Sample Scene project setup

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 Package Manager installation

If you create your project with the 3D Core template, Unity uses the older
Built-In Render Pipeline. You can migrate the project to HDRP manually
from the Package Manager (Window > Package Manager).

Find the High Definition RP package in the Unity Registry (or use the Search
field to locate it), and install.

Installing the Package Manager

If there is a conflict with the current Project Settings, the HDRP Render Pipeline
Wizard will appear to help you troubleshoot (also found under Window >
Render Pipeline > HDRP Render Pipeline Wizard).1

Click Fix All under Configuration Checking, or click Fix for each issue to repair
individually. This checklist can help you migrate from a non-SRP project.

1
In Unity 2021.2/HDRP 12, this is located under Window > Rendering > HDRP Wizard.

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 The HDRP wizard

When the wizard finishes, a prompt will ask you to create a new HDRP Pipeline
Asset. This is a file on disk that will hold your specific pipeline settings. Select
Create One to add a new Render Pipeline Asset and assign the file here.

Once HDRP is functioning properly, all of the checkboxes in the Configuration

Checking should be green, and the background environment may noticeably
change color.

Note that manual installation from a blank project does not import the
3D Sample Scene (HDRP). Use the 3D Sample Scene template if you want
access to the example assets shown in this guide.

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 HDRP Sample Scene
The 3D Sample Scene available from the Unity Hub is a template project that
helps you get started with HDRP and physically based lighting. This lightweight
project is less than 100 megabytes, and it offers a good working example of
HDRP that you can always load quickly for reference.

We’ll use this project to demonstrate many of the HDRP’s features throughout
this guide.

A wireframe representing the 3D Sample Scene environment

The small, multi-room environment demonstrates three distinct areas with

different lighting setups. The directional light representing the sun has a real-
world intensity of 100,000 lux, and each location corrects the camera’s exposure
to match the lighting environment.

Use the WASD keys and mouse to drive the FPS Controller around the level.

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 The 3D Sample Scene consists of three rooms.

— Room 1 is a round platform lit by the overhead sunlight. Decals add grime
and puddles of water to the concrete floor.

— Room 2 adds volumetric shafts of light from the skylight, as well as

advanced materials for the tree inside the glass case.

— Room 3 showcases interior artificial lighting and emissive materials.

The Sample Scene is a lightweight project demonstrating HDRP features.

For a deeper look at the HDRP 3D Sample Scene, please check out this
blog post from Unity technical artist Pierre Yves Donzallaz, which describes the
template scene in more detail.

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 More HDRP sample content

You might find some other projects helpful once you’re done exploring the HDRP
3D Sample Scene.

Though not originally intended for gaming, the Auto Showroom project
demonstrates a highly detailed vehicle with realistic lighting. Change the stage
lights, car paint materials, and backdrop in an interactive demo. This project
is available via the Unity Hub.

The Auto Showroom template

The Spaceship Demo primarily showcases the Visual Effect Graph, but it also
features many HDRP features in a sci-fi environment. You can download it from
Unity’s GitHub repository.

The Spaceship Demo

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 If you’re using HDRP with VR, you’ll appreciate the VR Alchemist Lab.
This project showcases interactive effects in a small medieval laboratory.

VR Alchemist Lab demo

To learn how to make cinematics or animated films, use our Cinematic Studio
Sample, which showcases how to set up and light the shots of a funny short
movie called Mich-L, mixing stylized and photoreal rendering.

Cinematic Studio Sample

We invite you to explore these additional projects as you discover the High
Definition Render Pipeline.

© 2021 Unity Technologies 14 of 83 | unity.com

 Project Settings
You’ll find a few essential settings in the Project Settings (Edit > Project
Settings) under Graphics, HDRP Default Settings, and Quality.

Note: HDRP Default Settings is called HDRP Global Settings in Unity 2021.2/
HDRP 12 and above.

Project Settings

Graphics Settings

The top field, the Scriptable Render Pipeline Settings, represents a file on disk
that stores all of your HDRP settings.

You can have multiple such Pipeline Assets per project. Think of each one as
a separate configuration file. For example, you might use them to store
specialized settings for different target platforms (Xbox, PlayStation, and so on),
or they could also represent different visual quality levels that the player could
swap at runtime.

The 3D Sample Scene

begins with several Pipeline
Assets in the Settings
folder: HDRPHighQuality,
HDRPLowQuality, and
HDRPMediumQuality.
There is also a
HDRPDefaultResources
folder containing a
DefaultHDRPAsset. The 3D Sample Scene includes low-, medium-, and high-quality Pipeline Assets.

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 Quality Settings

The Quality Settings allows you to correspond one of your Pipeline Assets with
a predefined quality level. Select a Level at the top to activate a specific Render
Pipeline Asset, shown in the Rendering options.

Select a quality level at the top to activate a Pipeline Asset.

You can customize the defaults

or create additional Quality
Levels, each paired with
additional Pipeline Assets.

A Quality Level represents a

specific set of visual features
active in the pipeline. For
example, you could create
several graphics tiers within your
application. At runtime, your
players could then choose the
active Quality Level, depending
on hardware.

Edit the actual pipeline settings

in the Quality/HDRP subsection.
You can also select the Pipeline
Asset in the Project view and edit
the settings in the Inspector. Editing the Pipeline Asset

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 Optimizing HDRP

Be aware that enabling more features in the Pipeline Asset will consume more
resources. In general, optimize your project to use only what you need to achieve your
intended effect. If you don’t need a feature, you can turn it off to improve performance
and save resources.

Here are some typical features that you can disable if you don’t use them:

— In the HDRP Asset: Decals, low-res transparency, transparent backface/

depth prepass / depth postpass, SSAO, SSR, contact shadows, volumetrics,
subsurface scattering, and distortions

— In the camera’s Frame Settings (Main Camera, cameras used for integrated
effects like reflections, or additional cameras used for custom effects):
Refraction, Post-Process, After Post-Process, Transmission, Reflection Probe,
Planar Reflection Probe, and Big Tile Prepass

HDRP Default Settings

The HDRP Default Settings section (called HDRP Global Settings in Unity 2021.2/
HDRP 12) determines the baseline configuration of which features you have enabled
when you start the project. You will override these with local settings based on
camera position and/or priority (see Volumes below).

Global Settings save in their own separate Pipeline Asset defined at the top field. Set
up the default rendering and post-processing options here.

Enabling HDRP features

As you develop your project, you may need to return to the HDRP Default Settings
to toggle a specific feature on or off. Some features will not render unless the
corresponding checkbox in the Default Settings is explicitly enabled. Be aware that
certain settings appear in the Volume Profiles and some features appear in the Frame
Settings, depending on usage.

While familiarizing yourself with HDRP’s feature set, make use of the top right Search
field in the Project Settings. This will only show you the relevant panels with the
search terms highlighted.

Search for HDRP features

Enabling a feature in the HDRP Default Settings does not guarantee that it is active. To
verify, you must also locate the Pipeline Asset currently selected as the Quality level.
Check the corresponding option there as well. HDRP features must be enabled in
both the global and local settings in order to function.

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 Forward vs
Deferred rendering
When configuring your HDRP settings in the Pipeline Asset, you will usually
start with the Lit Shader Mode under Rendering. Here you can choose between
Deferred, Forward, or Both. These represent the rendering path, a specific series
of operations related to how the pipeline will render and light the geometry.

Modifying the default HDRP settings

Customizing the render path

Choose Forward or Deferred in the Lit Shader

Modeto set your default rendering path.

HDRP is flexible and also allows you to choose

Both. This option lets you use one render path
for most rendering and then override it per
camera. However, this approach uses more
GPU memory. In most cases, it is better to
choose either Forward or Deferred.

— To affect all cameras by default, go to

HDRP Default Settings and locate
Default Frame Settings. This can
apply for a Camera, Baked or Custom
Reflection, or Realtime Reflections.

In the Rendering group, set the render

path in the Lit Shader Mode.

— For a specific camera, check its

Custom Frame Settings to override it.

Then, in the Rendering group, override

and change the rendering path of the
Lit Shader Mode. Modifying the custom frame settings for a camera

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 More about rendering paths

You may want to understand how these rendering paths work to see how Lit
Shader Mode will impact the other settings in our pipeline.

Forward rendering

In Forward rendering, the graphics card splits the on-screen geometry into
vertices. Those vertices are further broken down into fragments, or pixels,
which render to screen to create the final image.

Each object passes, one at a time, to the graphics API. Forward rendering comes
with a cost for each light. The more lights in your Scene, the longer rendering
will take.

Forward rendering path

Forward rendering draws lights in separate passes. If you have multiple lights
hitting the same GameObject, this can create significant overdraw, slowing
down when a lot of lights and objects are present.

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 Unlike traditional forward rendering, HDRP does add some efficiencies to the
forward renderer. For example, it culls and renders several lights together in a
single pass per object material. However, it’s still a relatively expensive process.
If performance is an issue, you may want to use Deferred Shading instead.

Deferred shading

HDRP can also use deferred shading, where lighting is not calculated per object.
Instead deferred shading postpones heavy rendering to a later stage and uses
two passes.

Deferred shading path

Deferred shading applies lighting to a buffer instead of each object. Each of these passes contributes
to the final rendered image.

In the first pass, or the G-buffer geometry pass, Unity renders the GameObjects.
This pass retrieves several types of geometric properties and stores them in a
set of textures (e.g., diffuse and specular colors, surface smoothness, occlusion,
normals, and so on).

In the second pass, or lighting pass, Unity renders the Scene’s lighting after the
G-buffer is complete. Hence, it defers the shading. The deferred shading path
iterates over each pixel and calculates the lighting information based on the
buffer instead of the individual objects.

For more information about the technical differences between the rendering
paths, see Forward and Deferred rendering in the HDRP documentation.

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 Anti-aliasing
The rendering path in the Lit Shader Mode influences how you can use anti-
aliasing to remove the jagged edges from your renders. HDRP offers several
anti-aliasing techniques, depending on your production needs.

Multisample anti-aliasing (MSAA)

Multisample anti-aliasing (MSAA) is a popular anti-aliasing method among PC

gamers. This is a high-quality hardware method that smooths the edges of
individual polygons, and it only works with forward rendering in Unity. Most
modern GPUs support 2x, 4x, and 8x MSAA samples.

MSAA quality settings

In your active Pipeline Asset, set the Lit Shader Mode to Forward Only. Next
select MSAA 2x, MSAA 4x, or MSAA 8x for the Multisample Anti-aliasing
Quality. Higher values result in better anti-aliasing, but they are slower.

We can see this more clearly when we zoom into the camera view.

Original scene

MSAA settings applied to an image

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Note these limitations:

— MSAA is incompatible with deferred

shading’s G-buffers, which store the
scene geometry in a texture. Thus,
deferred shading requires one of
the Post-processing Anti-aliasing
techniques (below).

— Because MSAA only deals with

polygon edge aliasing, it cannot
prevent aliasing found on certain
textures and materials hit by sharp
specular lighting. You may need to
combine MSAA with another Post-
processing Anti-aliasing technique
(right) if that is an issue.

Post-processing Anti-aliasing Adjust Post Anti-aliasing on your camera when using deferred shading.

Your camera also allows you to apply anti-aliasing as a post-processing technique

with the Post Anti-aliasing setting:

— Temporal Anti-aliasing (TAA) combines information from past

frames and the current frame to remove jaggies in the current frame.
You must enable motion vectors in order for it to work. TAA generally
produces great results, but it may create ghosting artifacts in some situations
(e.g., a GameObject moving quickly in front of a contrasting surface).
HDRP10 introduced improvements to cut down on typical TAA artifacts.
Unity’s implementation reduces ghosting, improves sharpness, and prevents
flickering found in other solutions.

— Fast Approximate Anti-aliasing

(FXAA) is a screen-space anti-
aliasing algorithm that blends pixels
between regions of high contrast.
It is a relatively fast technique that
does not require extensive computing
power, but it can reduce the overall
sharpness of the image.

— Subpixel Morphological Anti-aliasing

(SMAA) detects borders
in the image, then looks for specific
patterns to blend. This produces
sharper results than FXAA, and it
works well with flat, cartoon-like,
or clean art styles.
Post-processing anti-aliasing – compare the results of FXAA, SMAA, and TAA settings.

Note: When combining Post-processing Anti-aliasing with Multisample Anti-aliasing, be aware of the rendering cost.
As always, optimize your project to balance visual quality with performance.

© 2021 Unity Technologies 22 of 83 | unity.com

 Volumes
HDRP uses a Volume framework. This system allows you to split up your Scene
and enable certain settings or features based on camera position. For example,
the HDRP template level contains three distinct parts, each with its own lighting
setup. Thus, we have different Volumes encompassing each room.

Volumes cover spaces with distinct lighting conditions.

A Volume is just a placeholder object with a Volume component. You can create
one through the GameObject > Volume menu by selecting a preset. Otherwise,
simply make a GameObject with the correct components manually.

Creating a Volume object using the presets

Because Volume components can be added to any GameObject, it can be

difficult to find them via the Hierarchy. The Light Explorer (Window > Rendering
> Light Explorer > Volumes) can help you locate the volumes in the loaded
Scenes. Use this interface to make quick adjustments.

The Light Explorer can list all the Volumes in the open Scene(s).

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 Local and Global

Set the Volume component’s Mode setting to either Global or Local, depending
on context.

A global Volume works as a “catch-all” without any boundaries, and it affects all
cameras in the Scene. In the HDRP template scene, the VolumeGlobal defines
an overall baseline of HDRP settings for the entire level.

The Global Volume overrides

A local Volume defines a limited space where its settings take effect. It uses a
Collider component to determine its boundaries. Enable IsTrigger if you don’t
want the Collider to impede the movement of any physics bodies like your FPS
player controller.

In the template scene, each

room has a local Volume with
a BoxCollider that overrides
the global settings.

Room 2 has a small,

spherical Volume for the
bright center next to the
glass case. Likewise, Room
3 has smaller Volumes at
its entrance corridor and at
the seated area below the
pendant lights.
Each room has a local Volume with a Collider set to IsTrigger.

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 Use smaller Volumes for special lighting conditions.

In the SampleScene, the local Volumes override White Balance, Exposure,

and/or Fog. Anything not explicitly overridden falls back to the global defaults.

As your camera moves around the scene, the global settings take effect until
your player controller bumps into a local Volume where those settings take over.

Performance tip

Don’t use a large number of Volumes. Evaluating each Volume (blending,

spatialization, override computation, and so on) comes with some CPU cost.

Volume Profiles

A Volume component itself contains no actual data. Instead, it references a

Volume Profile, a ScriptableObject Asset on disk that contains HDRP settings to
render the scene. Use the Profile field to create a new Volume Profile with the
New or Clone buttons.

You can also switch to another Profile you already have saved. Having the
Volume Profile as a file makes it easier to reuse previous settings and share
Profiles between your Volumes.

Use the Profile field to switch Volume Profiles or create a new one.

Note that changes done to Volume Profiles in Play mode will not be lost when
leaving said mode.

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 Volume Overrides

Each Volume Profile begins with a set of default properties. To edit their values,
use Volume Overrides and customize the individual settings. For example,
Volumes Overrides could modify the Volume’s Fog, Post-processing,
or Exposure.

Once you have your Volume Profile set, click Add Override to customize the
Profile settings. A Fog override could look like this:

An example of Fog as a Volume Override

Each of the Volume Override’s properties has a checkbox at the left, which you
can enable to edit that property. Leaving the box disabled means HDRP uses
the Volume’s default value.

Each Volume object can have several overrides. Within each one, edit as many
properties as needed. You can quickly check or uncheck all of them with the All
or None shortcut at the top left.

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 Overrides workflow

Adding overrides is a key workflow in HDRP. If you understand the concept of

inheritance from programming, Volume Overrides will seem familiar to you.

The higher-level Volume settings serve as the defaults for lower-level Volumes.
Here, the HDRP Default Settings pass down to the global Volume. This, in turn,
serves as the “base” for the local Volumes.

Adding HDRP features using Volume Overrides

The Global Volume overrides the HDRP Default Settings. The Local Volumes, in
turn, override the Global Volume. Use the Priority, Weight, and Blend Distance
(outlined below) to resolve any conflicts from overlapping Volumes.

Debugging a Volume

To debug the current values of a given Volume component, you can use the
Volume tab in the Rendering Debugger.

You can find a complete Volume Overrides List in the HDRP documentation.

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 Blending and priority

Because you often need more than one Volume per level, HDRP allows you to
blend between Volumes. This makes transitions between them less abrupt.

At runtime, HDRP uses the camera position to determine which Volumes affect
the final HDRP settings.

Blend Distance defines a transition zone around the Volume.

Blend Distance determines how far outside the Volume’s Collider to begin fading
on or off. A value of 0 for Blend Distance means an instant transition, while a
positive value means the Volume Overrides begin blending once the camera
enters the specified range.

The Volume framework is flexible and allows you to mix and match Volumes
and overrides as you see fit. If more than one Volume overlaps the same space,
HDRP relies on Priority to decide which Volume takes precedence. Higher
values mean higher priority.

In general, set your Priority values explicitly to eliminate any guesswork.

Otherwise, the system will use creation order as the Priority “tiebreaker,”
which may lead to unexpected results.

Use Blend Distance, Weight, and Priority when overlapping local Volumes.

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 Exposure
HDRP uses real-world lighting models to render each scene. As such, many
properties are analogous to their counterparts in traditional photography.

Understanding exposure value

Exposure value (EV) is a numeric value that represents a combination of

a camera’s shutter speed and f-number (which determines the size of the
lens opening, or aperture). You need to properly set exposure to reach ideal
brightness, capturing high levels of detail in both the shadows and highlights.
Otherwise, overexposing or underexposing the image leads to less-than-
desirable results.

Compare overexposed, underexposed, and balanced images.

Your exposure range in HDRP will typically fall somewhere along this spectrum:

Greater exposure values allow less light into the camera and are appropriate for

Exposure range, from a moonless night to a bright, sunny day

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 Exposure triangle

more brightly lit situations. Here, an EV value between 13 and 16 is suitable for a
sunny daytime exterior. In contrast, a dark, moonless, night sky might use an EV
between -3 and 0.

You can vary a number of factors in an actual camera’s settings to modify your
Exposure value:

— The shutter speed, the length of time the image sensor is exposed to light

— The f-number, or the size of the aperture/lens opening

— The ISO, or sensitivity of the film/sensor

Photographers call this the exposure triangle. In Unity, as with a real camera, you can
arrive at the same exposure value using different combinations of these numbers.

HDRP expresses all exposure values in EV100, which fixes the sensitivity to that of
100 International Standards Organisation (ISO) film.

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 Exposure value formula

This formula actually calculates exposure value.

Exposure formula

It’s a logarithmic base-2 scale. As the exposure value increases 1 unit, the
amount of light entering the lens decreases by half.

HDRP allows you to match the exposure of a real image. Simply shoot a digital
photo with a camera or smartphone. Grab the metadata from the image to
identify the f-number, shutter speed, and ISO.

Use the digital photo’s Exif data to match exposure.

Then, calculate the exposure value using the formula above. If you use the same
value in the Exposure override (see below), the rendered image should fall in line
with the real-world image exposure.

In this way, you can use digital photos as references when lighting your level.
While your goal isn’t necessarily to recreate the image perfectly, matching an
actual photograph can take the guesswork out of your lighting setups.

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 Exposure override

In HDRP, Exposure is a Volume Override. Add it to a local or global Volume

to see the available properties.

In the Mode dropdown, you can select one of the following: Fixed, Automatic,
Automatic Histogram, Curve Mapping, and Physical Camera.

Compensation allows you to shift or adjust the exposure. You would typically
use this to apply minor adjustments and “stop” the rendered image up and
down slightly.

Fixed mode

Fixed mode lets you set the exposure value manually.

Fixed mode exposure

Follow the graduation marks on the Fixed Exposure

slider for hints. The icon to the right also has a dropdown
of Presets (e.g., 13 for a Sunlit Scene down to -2.5 for a
Moonless Scene). You can also set the field directly to
any value.

Fixed exposure presets

Fixed mode is simple but not very flexible. It usually only
works if you have a Volume or Scene with relatively uniform
lighting, where one exposure value can work throughout.

Automatic mode

Automatic mode dynamically sets the exposure depending on the range of

brightness levels onscreen. This functions much like the human eye adapts to
varying levels of darkness, redefining what is perceived as black.

While Automatic mode will work under many lighting situations, it can also
unintentionally overexpose or underexpose the image when pointing the camera
at a very dark or very bright part of the scene.

Use the Limit Min and Limit Max to keep the exposure level within a desirable
range. Playtest to verify that your limits stay within your expected exposure
throughout the level.

Metering Mode, combined with mask options, determines what part of the
frame to use for autoexposure.

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 Automatic mode exposure

The Adaptation mode controls how the autoexposure changes as the camera
transitions between darkness and light, with options to adjust the speed. Just
like with the eye, moving the camera from a very dark to a very light area, or vice
versa, can be briefly disorienting.

Metering mode options

Automatic, Automatic Histogram, and Curve Mapping modes use Metering mode
to control what part of the frame to use when calculating exposure. You can set
the Metering mode to:

— Average: The camera uses the entire frame to measure exposure.

— Spot: The camera only uses the center of the screen to measure exposure.

— Center Weighted: The camera favors pixels in the center of the image and
feathers out toward the edges of frame.

— Mask Weighted: A supplied image (Weight Texture Mask) determines

which pixels are most important when determining exposure.

— Procedural Mask: The camera evaluates exposure based on a

procedurally generated texture. You can change options for the center,
radius, and softness.

Spot and Center Weighted metering modes

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 Automatic Histogram

Automatic Histogram mode takes Automatic mode a step further. This computes
a histogram for the image and ignores the darkest and lightest pixels when
setting exposure.

Automatic Histogram mode

By rejecting very dark or very bright pixels from the exposure calculation,
you may experience a more stable exposure whenever extremely bright or
dark pixels appear on the frame. This way, intense emissive surfaces or black
materials won’t underexpose or overexpose your rendered output as severely.

The Histogram Percentages setting allows you to discard anything in the

histogram outside the given range of percentages (imagine clipping the
brightest and darkest pixels from the histogram’s leftmost and rightmost parts).

Curve Remapping lets you remap the exposure curve as well (see Curve
Mapping below).

Automatic Histogram mode uses pixels from the middle of the histogram to calculate exposure.

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 Curve Mapping

The Curve Mapping mode is another variant of Automatic mode.

Curve Mapping mode

Here, the x-axis of the curve represents the current exposure, and the y-axis
represents the target exposure. Remapping the exposure curve can generate
very precise results.

Adjust the exposure using a curve.

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 Physical Camera

Those familiar with photography may find Physical Camera mode helpful for
setting camera parameters.

Switch the Exposure override’s Mode to Physical Camera, then locate the
Main Camera.

Physical Camera mode

Enable Physical Camera. The Inspector shows the following properties.

Physical Camera properties on a camera

Important to exposure are the ISO (sensitivity), Aperture (or f-number), and
Shutter Speed. If you are matching reference photos, copy the correct settings
from the image’s Exif data. Otherwise, this table can help you guesstimate
Exposure Value based on f-number and shutter speed.

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 Additional Physical Camera parameters

Though not related to exposure, other Physical Camera properties can help you
match the attributes of real-world cameras.

For example, we normally use Field of View in Unity (and many other 3D
applications) to determine how much of the world a camera can see at once.

In real cameras, however, the field of view depends on the size of the sensor
and focal length of the lens. Rather than setting the field of view directly, the
Physical Camera settings allow you to fill in the Sensor Type, Sensor Size,
and Focal Length from the actual camera data. Unity will then automatically
calculate the corresponding Field of View value.

Rely on the camera metadata

included with the image files
when trying to match a real photo
reference. Both Windows and
macOS can read the Exif data
from digital images. You can then
copy the corresponding fields to
your virtual camera.

Note: You may need to search for

the exact sensor dimensions on
the manufacturer’s website once
you have the camera make and
model from the metadata. This
article includes an estimate of
common image sensor formats.

Several of the bottom parameters

influence the Depth of Field
Volume. Blade Count, Curvature,
and Barrel Clipping change the
camera aperture’s shape. This
influences the look of the bokeh
that results from the Depth of
The relationship between focal length, sensor size, and field of view Field Volume component.

Use the physical camera parameters to reshape the aperture. The five-bladed iris can show a pentagonal (left)
or circular (right) bokeh.

© 2021 Unity Technologies 37 of 83 | unity.com

 Lights
HDRP includes a number of different Light types and shapes to help you control
illumination in your scene.

Light types

These Light types are available, similar to the other render pipelines in Unity:

— Directional: This behaves like light from an infinitely distant source, with
perfectly parallel light rays that don’t diminish in intensity. Directional lights
often stand in for sunlight. In an exterior scene, this will often be your
key light.

— Spot: This is similar to a real-world spotlight, which can take the shape of
a cone, pyramid, or box. A spot falls off along the forward z-axis, as well
as toward the edges of the cone/pyramid shape.

— Point: This is an omnidirectional light that illuminates all directions from a

single point in space. This is useful for radiant sources of light, like a
lamp or candle.

— Area: This projects light from the surface of a specific shape (a rectangle,
tube, or disc). An area light functions like a broad light source with a
uniform intensity in the center, like a window or fluorescent tube.

Modify how the spot, point, and area lights fall off with the Range. Many HDRP
Lights diminish using the inverse square law, like light sources in the real world.

© 2021 Unity Technologies 38 of 83 | unity.com

 Shapes

Spot and area lights have additional shapes for controlling how each light falls off.

HDRP spot lights can use three shapes:

— Cone: Projects light from a single point to a circular base. Adjust the Outer
Angle (degrees) and Inner Angle (percentage) to shape the cone and
modify its angular attenuation.

— Pyramid: Projects light from a single point onto a square base. Adjust the
pyramid shape with the Spot Angle and Aspect Ratio.

— Box: Projects light uniformly across a rectangular volume. An X and Y size

etermine the base rectangle, and the Range controls the Y dimension. This
light has no attenuation unless Range Attenuation is checked and can be
used to simulate sunlight within the boundary of the box.

HDRP spot light shapes

HDRP area lights can use three shapes:

— Rectangle: Projects light from a rectangle shape in the local, positive Z

direction out to a defined Range.

— Tube: Projects light from a single line in every direction, out to a defined
Range. This light only works in Realtime Mode.

— Disc: Projects light from a disc shape in the local positive Z direction,
out to a defined Range. This light only works in Baked Mode.

HDRP area light shapes

© 2021 Unity Technologies 39 of 83 | unity.com

 Color and temperature

All HDRP Light types have Emission properties that define the light’s appearance.

Modify Light Appearance properties under Emission

You can switch the Light Appearance to Color and specify an RGB color. Otherwise,
change this to Filter and Temperature for more physically accurate input.

Color temperature sets the color based on degrees Kelvin. See the Lighting and
Exposure Cheat Sheet for reference.

Color temperature on the Kelvin scale

You can also add another color that acts like a Filter, tinting the light with another
hue. This is similar to adding a color gel in photography.

Each Light has additional properties.

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 Toggle diffuse and specular lighting for additional control.

Additional properties

HDRP also includes some advanced controls under the More Options button
at the top right of the Inspector properties. Click it to reveal additional controls.

These include toggles for Affect Diffuse and Affect Specular. In cutscene or
cinematic lighting, for example, you can separate Lights that control the bright
shiny highlights independently from those that produce softer diffuse light.

You can also use the Intensity Multiplier to adjust the overall intensity of the
light without actually changing the original intensity value. This is useful for
brightening or darkening multiple Lights at once.

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 Light Layers

HDRP allows you to use Light Layers to make Lights only affect specific meshes
in your Scene. These are LayerMasks that you can associate with a Light
component and MeshRenderer.

In the Light properties, click the More Options button. This displays the Light
Layer dropdown under General. Choose which LayerMasks you want to
associate with the Light.

In the Light properties, select Show Additional Properties from the More
Items menu (☰). This displays the Light Layer dropdown under General.
Choose what LayerMasks you want to associate with the Light.

Select a Light Layer

Next, set up the MeshRenderers with the Rendering Layer Mask. Only Lights on
the matching LayerMask will affect the mesh. This feature can be invaluable for
fixing light leaks, making sure that lights only strike their intended targets. It can
also be part of the workflow to set up cutscene lighting, so that characters only
can receive dedicated cinematic lights.

© 2021 Unity Technologies 42 of 83 | unity.com

 For example, if you wanted to prevent the lights inside of a building from
accidentally penetrating the walls to the outside, you could set up specific Light
Layers for the interior and exterior. This ensures that you have fine-level control
of your Light setups.

Set the Rendering Layer Mask so that only specific Lights affect the mesh.

To set up your Light Layers, go to the HDRP Default Settings. The Layers
Names section lets you set the string name for Light Layer 0 to 7.

Layers Names in the HDRP Default Settings

For more information, including the full list of Light properties, see the
Light component documentation.

© 2021 Unity Technologies 43 of 83 | unity.com

 Physical Light Units
and intensity
HDRP uses Physical Light Units (PLU) for measuring light intensity. These match
real-life SI measurements for illuminance, including candela, lumen, lux, and nits.
Note that PLU expects 1 unit in Unity to equal 1 meter for accuracy.

Units

Physical Light Units can include units of both luminous flux and illuminance.
Luminous flux represents the total amount of light emitted from a source, while
illuminance refers to the total amount of light received by an object (often in
luminous flux per unit of area).

Because commercial lighting and photography may express units differently

depending on application, Unity supports multiple Physical Light Units
for compatibility:

— Candela: One unit is equivalent to the

luminous flux of a wax candle. This is
also commonly called candlepower.

— Lumen: This is the SI unit of luminous

flux defined to be the 1 candela over
a solid angle (steradian). You will
commonly see lumens on commercial
lightbulb specifications. Use it with
Unity spot, point, or area lights.

— Lux: A light source that emits 1 lumen

onto an area of 1 square meter has an
illuminance of 1 lux. Real-world light
meters commonly read lux, and you
will often use this unit with directional
lights in Unity.

— Nits: This is a unit of luminance that

is the equivalent of 1 candela per
square meter. Display devices and
LED panels (televisions or monitors,
for example) often measure their
brightness in Nits.

— EV100: This uses an intensity

corresponding to EV100, which is an
exposure value with 100 ISO film
(see exposure value formula above).
Incrementing the exposure results in
the doubling of the lighting, due to
the logarithmic behavior. Guidance for lighting and exposure levels

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 IES profiles applied to various lights

For recreating a real lighting source, switch to the unit listed on the tech specs and
plug in the correct luminous flux or luminance. HDRP will match the Physical Lighting
Units, eliminating much of the guesswork when setting intensities.

Click the icon to choose presets for Exterior, Interior, Decorative, and Candle.
These settings provide a good starting point if you are not explicitly matching a
specific value.

Common lighting and exposure values

The following cheat sheet contains the color temperature values and light intensities
of common real-world light sources. It also contains exposure values for different
lighting scenarios.

You can find a complete table of common illumination values in the Physical Light
Units documentation.

IES Profiles and Cookies

Make your point, spot, and area lights more closely mimic the falloff of real lights
using an IES profile. This works like a light cookie to apply a specific manufacturer’s
specs to a pattern of light. IES profiles can give your lights an extra boost of realism.

Import an IES profile from Assets > Import New Asset. The importer will
automatically create a Light Prefab with the correct intensity. Then just drag the
Prefab into the Scene view or Hierarchy and tweak its color temperature.

Here are some sources for IES profiles:

Real-world manufacturers
— Philips
— Lithonia Lighting
— Efficient Lighting Systems
— Atlas
— Erco
— Lamp
— Osram

Artist sources
— Renderman

For information on the IES profile

importer, see the documentation. IES Profile and Import Settings

© 2021 Unity Technologies 45 of 83 | unity.com

 Environment lighting
In the real world, light reflects and scatters around us. The sky and ground
contribute to environment lighting as random photons bounce between the
atmosphere and earth and ultimately arrive at the observer.

In HDRP, you can use the Visual Environment override to define the sky and
general ambience for a scene.

Use Ambient Mode: Dynamic to set the sky lighting to the current override
that appears in the Visual Environment’s Sky > Type. Otherwise, Ambient Mode:
Static defaults to the sky setup in the Lighting window’s Environment tab.

Even with your other light sources disabled, the SampleScene receives general
ambient light from the Visual Environment.

Environment lighting only – with the sun directional light disabled, Direct sunlight combined with the environment lighting
the sky still provides ambient light.

Adding the key light of the sun completes the general illumination of the scene.
The environment light helps fill in the shadow areas so that they don’t appear
unnaturally dark.

HDRP includes three different techniques for generating skies. Set the Type
to either HDRI Sky, Gradient Sky, or Physically Based Sky. Then, add the
appropriate override from the Sky menu.

Applying a Visual Environment sky is similar to wrapping the entire virtual world
with a giant illuminated sphere. The colored polygons of the sphere provide a
general light from the sky, horizon, and ground.

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 HDRI Sky

HDRI Sky allows you to represent the sky with a cubemap made from high-
dynamic range photographs. You can find numerous free and low-cost sources of
HDRIs online. A good starting point is the Unity HDRI Pack in the Asset Store.
If you’re adventurous, we also have a guide to shooting your own HDRIs.

HDRI Sky

Once you’ve imported your HDRI assets, add the HDRI Sky override to load the
HDRI Sky asset. This lets you also tweak options for Distortion, Rotation, and
Update Mode.

Because the sky is a source of illumination, specify the Intensity Mode, then
choose a corresponding Exposure/Multiplier/Lux value to control the strength of
the environmental lighting. Refer to the Lighting and Exposure Cheat Sheet above
for example intensity and exposure values.

An HDRI Sky applied as a cubemap to the interior of a sphere

© 2021 Unity Technologies 47 of 83 | unity.com

 The Top,
Middle, and
Bottom colors
blend into a
Gradient Sky Gradient Sky.

Choose Gradient Sky in the Visual

Environment to approximate the
background sky with a color ramp.
Then add the Gradient Sky override.
Use the Top, Middle, and Bottom to
determine colors for the gradient.
Physically Based
Sky override

Blend the color ramp with Gradient

Diffusion, and dial the Intensity for
the strength of the lighting.

Physically Based Sky

For something significantly more

realistic than a gradient, you can use
the Physically Based Sky override.
This procedurally generates a sky
that incorporates phenomena such
as Mie scattering and Rayleigh
scattering. These simulate light
dispersing through the atmosphere,
recreating the coloration of the
natural sky. Physically Based Sky
requires a directional light for
accurate simulation.

A procedurally generated sky from the Fountainebleau Demo

© 2021 Unity Technologies 48 of 83 | unity.com

 Use the Base Height and Maximum Height to make a low-hanging fog.

Fog and atmospheric

scattering
Smoke, fog, and haze are traditional tools of cinematography. They can help add
depth and dimension to stage lighting or create an atmospheric mood. You can
use fog for a similar advantage in HDRP.

Its opacity depends on the object’s distance away from the camera. Fog can
also hide the camera’s far clipping plane, blending your distant geometry back
into the scene.

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 Global fog

HDRP implements global fog

as a Fog override. Here, the
fog fades exponentially with its
distance from the camera and
its world space height.
Fog override

Set up the Fog override on a Volume in your Scene. The Base Height determines
a boundary where constant, thicker fog begins to thin out traveling upward.
Above this value, the fog density continues fading exponentially, until it reaches
the Maximum Height.

Likewise, the Fog Attenuation Distance and Max Fog Distance control how
fog fades with greater distance from from the camera. Toggle the Color Mode
between a Constant Color or the existing Sky Color.

Fog Attenuation Distance

Enable Volumetric Fog to simulate atmospheric scattering. Make sure to check

Fog and Volumetrics in the Frame Settings (either under the camera or in
HDRP Default Settings) under Lighting. Also, enable Volumetric Fog in the HDRP
Pipeline Asset.

Volumetric Fog Distance sets the distance (in meters) from the Camera’s
Near Clipping Plane to the back of its volumetric lighting buffer. This fills the
atmosphere with an airborne material, partially occluding GameObjects
within range.

Volumetric Fog more accurately holds out the foreground geometry.

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 Volumetric Lighting

Volumetric Lighting can simulate rendering dramatic sunbeams, like

crepuscular rays behind the clouds at sunset or passing through foliage.

Each Light component (except area lights) has a Volumetrics group. Check
Enable, then set the Multiplier and Shadow Dimmer. A Real-time or Mixed
Mode light will produce ’god rays’ within Volumetric Fog. The Multiplier dials
the intensity, while the Shadow Dimmer controls how shadow casting surfaces
cut into the light.

Volumetrics in the Light component

Room 2 in the Sample Scene features a skylight and Volumetric Fog. The
frame of the glass case carves volumetric shadows out of the sunbeams
from the ceiling. Dial up the Shadow Dimmer and exaggerate the Multiplier to
intensify the effect.

Volumetric Lighting applied to the ceiling spotlights

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 Local Volumetric Fog

If you want more detailed fog effects than the

Fog override can provide, HDRP additionally
offers Local Volumetric Fog (called a Density
Volume component before HDRP 12).

This is a separate component, outside the

Volume system. Create a Local Volumetric Fog
GameObject from the menu (GameObject >
Rendering > Local Volumetric Fog) or right-
click over the Hierarchy (Rendering > Local
The Local Volumetric Fog component
Volumetric Fog).

Local Volumetric Fog appears in a bounding box. Volumetric Lighting dramatically illuminates the Volumetric Fog areas.

This generates a fog-filled bounding box.

Adjust the size, axis control, and blending/
fading options.

By default, the fog is uniform, but you can

apply a 3D Texture to the Texture field under
the Density Mask Texture subsection. This
gives the user more flexibility to control the
look of the fog. Download examples from
the Package Manager’s Local Volumetric 3D
Texture Samples or follow the documentation
procedures to create your own Density Masks.

Add some Scroll Speed for animation and

adjust the Tiling. Your Volumetric Fog then can
gently roll through the scene.

Note: HDRP voxelizes Local Volumetric Fog

to enhance performance. However, the
voxelization can appear very coarse. To
reduce aliasing, use a Density Mask Texture
and increase the Blend Distance to soften the
fog’s edges. Density Mask Texture from the Local Volumetric 3D Texture Samples

© 2021 Unity Technologies 52 of 83 | unity.com

 Shadows
We can’t perceive light without darkness. Well-placed shadows in your scene
add as much interest as the lighting itself and can imbue your scenes with extra
depth and dimension. HDRP includes a number of features to fine-tune your
shadows and prevent your renders from looking flat.

Shadow maps

Shadows render using a technique called shadow mapping, where a texture

stores the depth information from the light’s point of view.

Locate the Shadows subsection of the Light component to modify your

shadow mapping Update Mode and Resolution. Higher resolutions and update
frequency settings cost more resources.

Shadow settings per light

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 Shadow Cascades

For a directional light, the shadow map covers a large portion of the scene,
which can lead to a problem called perspective aliasing. Shadow map pixels
close to the camera look jagged and blocky compared to those farther away.

Perspective aliasing with blocky shadows

Shadow Cascades reduce perspective aliasing.

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 Shadow Cascades
Unity solves this with cascaded break the camera
frustum into zones,
shadow maps. It splits the camera each with its own
frustum into zones, each with its own shadow map.

shadow map. This reduces the effect

of perspective aliasing.

HDRP gives you extra control over your

Shadow Cascades with the Shadows
override. Use the cascade settings
per Volume to fine-tune where each
cascade begins and ends.

Toggle the Show Cascades button

to visualize the cascade splits more
easily. With some tweaking, you can
keep perspective aliasing to
a minimum.

Contact Shadows

Shadow maps often fail to

capture the small details,
especially at discernible
edges where two mesh
surfaces connect. HDRP
can generate these Contact
Shadows using the Contact
Shadows override.

Contact Shadows are a

screen space effect and rely
Shadow override on information within the
frame in order to calculate.
Objects outside of the frame
do not contribute to Contact
Shadows. Use them for
shadow details with a small
onscreen footprint.

Make sure that you enable

Contact Shadows in the
Frame Settings. You can also
adjust the Sample Count
in the Pipeline Asset under
Contact Shadows override Lighting Quality Settings.

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 Click Show Cascades to visualize the cascade splits.

Micro shadows

HDRP can extend even smaller shadow details into your Materials. Micro
shadows use the normal map and ambient occlusion map to render really fine
surface shadows without using the mesh geometry itself.

Simply add the Micro shadows override to a Volume in your Scene and adjust
the Opacity. Micro shadows only work with directional lights.

Micro shadows override

Micro shadows add extra contrast to this bed of foliage.

Adjust the settings for the shadow thickness, quality, and fade.

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 Reflections
Reflections help integrate your GameObjects with their surrounding environment.
Though we normally associate reflections with smooth and shiny surfaces, even
rough materials need to receive correct reflections in a PBR workflow. HDRP
offers multiple techniques to generate reflections:

— Screen Space Reflections

— Reflection Probes

— Sky reflections

Each reflection type can be resource intensive, so select the method that works
best depending on your use case. If more than one reflection technique applies
to a pixel, HDRP blends the contribution of each reflection type. Bounding
surfaces called Influence Volumes partition the 3D space to determine what
objects receive the reflections.

Influence Volumes determine where Reflection Probes create reflections.

Screen Space Reflections

Screen Space Reflections use the depth and color buffer to calculate reflections.
Thus they can only reflect objects currently in camera view and may not render
properly at certain positions on screen. Glossy floorings and wet planar surfaces
are good candidates for receiving Screen Space Reflections.

Screen Space Reflections ignore all objects outside of the frame, which can be a
limitation to the effect.

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 Screen Space Reflection override

Screen Space Reflections

Make sure you have Screen Space Reflection enabled in the Frame Settings
(HDRP Default Settings or the Camera’s Custom Frame Settings) under
Lighting. Then, add the Screen Space Reflection override to your Volume object.

Material surfaces must exceed the Minimum Smoothness value to show Screen
Space Reflections. Lower this value if you want rougher materials to show the
SSR, but be aware that a lower Minimum Smoothness threshold can add to the
computation cost. If Screen Space Reflection fails to affect a pixel, then HDRP
falls back to using Reflection Probes.

Use the Quality dropdown to select a preset number of Max Ray Steps. Higher
Max Ray Steps increase quality but come with a cost. As with all effects,
balance performance with visual quality.

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 Reflection Probes

Reflection Probes generate reflections using an image-based technique. A

probe captures a spherical view of its surroundings in all directions and stores
the result in a cubemap texture. A shader uses that cubemap to approximate
a reflection.

Each Scene can have several probes and blend the results. Localized reflections
then can change as your camera moves through the environment.

Set the Type of each probe to Baked or Real-time:

— Baked probes process the cubemap texture just once for a

static environment.

— Real-time probes create the cubemap at runtime in the Player rather than
in the Editor. This means that reflections are not limited to static objects,
but be aware that real-time updates can be resource intensive.

Reflection Probe component

The Influence Volume determines the 3D boundaries where GameObjects will

receive the reflection, while the Capture Settings let you customize how the
Reflection Probe takes a snapshot of the cubemap.

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 Planar Reflection Probe

A Planar Reflection Probe allows you to recreate a flat, reflective surface, taking
surface smoothness into account. This is perfect for a shiny mirror or floor.

Though a Planar Reflection Probe shares much in common with a standard

Reflection Probe, it does work slightly differently. Rather than capture the
environment as a cubemap, it recreates the view of a camera reflected through
the probe’s mirror plane.

The probe then stores the resulting mirror image in a 2D RenderTexture. Drawn
to the boundaries of the rectangular probe, this creates a planar reflection.

A Planar Reflection Probe captures a mirror image by reflecting a camera through a plane.

Planar Reflection Probes applied to three different materials

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 Sky reflection

When an object is not affected by a nearby Reflection Probe, it will fallback to

the sky reflection.

A Reflection Probe shows the surrounding room whereas a sky reflection reflects the Gradient Sky.

Reflection hierarchy

To produce the highest-quality reflections, HDRP uses the technique that

gives the best accuracy for each pixel and allows it to blend with the other
techniques. HDRP checks the three reflection methods (SSR, Reflection Probes,
sky) using a weighted priority. This specific sequence for evaluating reflections
is called the Reflection hierarchy.

When one technique does not fully determine the reflection at a pixel, HDRP falls
back to the next technique. In other words, Screen Space Reflection falls back
to the Reflection Probes, which in turn fall back to sky reflections.

It’s important to set up your Influence Volumes for your Reflection Probes
properly. Otherwise, you could experience light leaking from unwanted
sky reflections.

This is apparent in Room 3 of the SampleScene. Disabling one of the Reflection

Probes or shifting its Influence Volume forces the reflection to fall back to the
sky. This causes the bright HDRI sky to overpower the scene with its
intense reflections.

For more details about determining Reflection Hierarchy, see the Reflection in
the HDRP documentation page.

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 Disabling the Reflection Probe on the Room 3 ceiling causes unwanted light leaking.

Reflection Proxy Volumes

Because the capture point of a Reflection Probe is fixed and rarely matches
the Camera position near the Reflection Probe, there may be a noticeable
perspective shift in the resulting reflection. As a result, the reflection might
not look connected to the environment.

A Reflection Proxy Volume helps you partially correct this. It reprojects the
reflections more accurately within the proxy Volume, based on the
Camera position.

A Reflection Proxy Volume reprojects the cubemap to match the room’s world space position.

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 Real-time
lighting effects
HDRP also features some real-time lighting effects available through the Volume
system. Select a local or global Volume, then add the appropriate effect under
Add Override > Lighting.

Screen Space Ambient Occlusion

Ambient occlusion simulates darkening that occurs in creases, holes, and

surfaces that are close to one another. Areas that block out ambient light
appear occluded.

Ambient Occlusion override

Ambient occlusion visualization in the Auto Showroom project

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 Though you can bake ambient occlusion for static geometry through Unity’s
Lightmapper, HDRP adds an additional Screen Space Ambient Occlusion, which
works in real time. Because this is a screen space effect, only information from
within the frame can contribute to the effect produced. SSAO ignores all objects
outside of the camera’s field of view.

Enable Screen Space Ambient Occlusion in the Frame Settings under

Lighting. Then, Add Override on a local or global Volume and select Lighting >
Ambient Occlusion.

Screen Space Global Illumination

Screen Space Global Illumination (SSGI) uses the depth and color buffer of the
screen to calculate bounced, diffuse light. Much like how lightmapping can
bake indirect lighting into the surfaces of your static level geometry, SSGI more
accurately simulates how photons can strike surfaces and transfer color and
shading as they bounce.

Screen Space Global Illumination override

In Room 2 of the Sample Scene, we can see the green of the moving tree leaves
transfer through bounced light onto the wall with SSGI enabled.

Screen Space Global Illumination captures the bounced light from the foliage in real time.

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 Like other effects that depend on the frame buffer, the edges of the screen
become problematic, since objects outside the camera’s field of view cannot
contribute to the global illumination.

SSGI is enabled under the Frame Settings under Lighting, and it must be
enabled in the Pipeline Asset’s Lighting section as well.

Note: We recommend that you use Unity 2021.2 or above with Screen Space
Global Illumination. HDRP 12 includes significant improvements to SSGI quality.

Screen Space Refraction

The Screen Space Refraction override helps to simulate how light behaves when
passing through a denser medium than air. HDRP’s Screen Space Refraction
uses the depth and color buffer to calculate refraction through a transparent
material like glass.

Screen Space Refraction override

To enable this effect through the HDRP/Lit shader, make sure your material has
a Surface Type of Transparent.

Then choose a Refraction Model and Index of Refraction under Transparency

Inputs. Use the Sphere Refraction Model for solid objects. Choose Thin (like a
bubble) or Box (with some slight thickness) for hollow objects.

Transparency Inputs to control refraction

Screen Space Refraction

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 Post-processing
Modern high-end graphics would be incomplete without post-processing.
While we can’t always “fix it in post,” it’s difficult to imagine our rendered images
without the filters and full-screen image effects that make them more cinematic.
Thus, HDRP comes bundled with its own built-in post-processing effects.

Post-processing effects make your renders more cinematic.

HDRP post-processing uses the Volume system to apply the image effects to
the camera. Once you know how to add overrides, the process of applying more
post effects should already be familiar.

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 Post-processing overrides

Many of these post-processing overrides for controlling color and contrast may
overlap in functionality. Finding the right combinations of them may require
some trial and error.

You won’t need every effect available. Just add the overrides necessary to
create your desired look and ignore the rest.

Post-processing overrides

Refer to the Volumes in the SampleScene for example usage.

Tonemapping

Tonemapping is a technique for mapping high-dynamic-range colors to the more

limited dynamic range of your screen. It can enhance the contrast and detail in
your renders.

ACES versus Neutral tonemapping

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 If you want a filmic look, set the Mode to the industry standard ACES (Academy
Color Encoding System). For something less saturated and contrasted, select
Neutral. Experienced users also have the option of choosing Custom and
defining the tonemapping curve for themselves.

Tonemapping with a custom curve

Shadows, Midtones, Highlights

The Shadows, Midtones, Highlights override separately controls the tonal and
color range for shadows, midtones, and highlights of the render. Activate each
trackball to affect the respective part of the image. Then, use the Shadow and
Highlight Limits to prevent clipping or pushing the color correction too far.

Shadows, Midtones, Highlights

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 Bloom

Bloom creates the effect of light bleeding around the light source. This conveys
the impression that the light source is intensely bright and overwhelming
the camera.

Bloom override

Adjust the Intensity and Scatter to adjust the Bloom’s size and brightness.
Lens Dirt applies a texture of smudges or dust to diffract the Bloom effect.

The effect of Bloom

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 Depth of Field

Depth of Field simulates the focus properties of a real camera lens. Objects
nearer or farther from the camera’s focus distance appear to blur.

When Depth of Field is active, an out-of-focus blur effect called a bokeh can
appear around a bright area of the image. Modify the camera aperture’s shape
to change the appearance of the bokeh (see Additional Physical Camera
Parameters above).

Depth of Field override

Depth of Field simulates the focus distance of real cameras.

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 White Balance

The White Balance override adjusts a Scene’s color so that the color white is
correctly rendered in the final image. You could also push the Temperature to
shift between yellow (warmer) and blue (cooler). Tint adjusts the color cast
between green and magenta.

In the HDRP Sample Project, the local Volumes include White Balance overrides
for each room.

White Balance

Color Curves

Grading curves allow you to adjust specific ranges in hue, saturation, or luminosity.
Select one of the eight available graphs to remap your color and contrast.

Color Curves

Color Adjustments

Use this effect to tweak the overall tone, brightness, hue, and contrast of the
final rendered image.

Color Adjustments

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 Channel Mixer

The Channel Mixer lets one color channel impact the “mix” of another. Select
an RGB output, then adjust the influence of one of the inputs. For example,
dialing up the Green influence in the Red Output Channel will tint all green
areas of the image with a reddish hue.

Channel Mixer

Lens Distortion

Lens Distortion simulates radial patterns that arise from imperfections in the
manufacture of real-world lenses. This results in straight lines appearing slightly
bowed or bent, especially with zoom or wide-angle lenses.

Lens Distortion warps the image in a radial pattern.

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 Vignette

Vignette imitates an effect from practical photography, where the corners of the
image darken and/or desaturate. This can occur with wide-angle lenses or result
from an appliance (a lens hood or stacked filter rings) blocking the light. This
effect can also be used to draw the attention of the viewer to the center
of the screen.

A Vignette darkens the edges of the frame.

Motion Blur

Real-world objects appear to streak or blur in a resulting image when they move
faster than the camera exposure time. The Motion Blur override simulates
that effect.

To minimize performance cost, reduce the Sample Count, increase the Minimum
Velocity, and decrease the Maximum Velocity. You can also reduce the Camera
Clamp Mode parameters under the Additional Properties.

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 Rendering Debugger
The Rendering Debugger window (Window > Analysis > Rendering Debugger)
contains debugging and visualization tools specific to the Scriptable Render
Pipeline. The left side is organized by category. Each panel allows you to isolate
issues with lighting, materials, volumes, cameras, and so on.

Rendering Debugger

The Debugger can help you troubleshoot a specific rendering pass. On the
Lighting panel, you can enter Fullscreen Debug Mode and choose features
to debug.

Fullscreen Debug Mode options

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 These Debug modes let you play “pixel detective” and identify the source of a
specific lighting or shading issue. The panels on the left can show you vital statistics
from your cameras, Materials, Volumes, and so on, to help optimize your render.

With the fullscreen Debug mode active, the Scene and Game views switch to a
temporary visualization of a specific feature. This can serve as a useful diagnostic.

Lighting Debug Mode or Fullscreen Debug Mode can help you understand the sources of illumination in your scene.

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 You can also debug several common material properties. On the Material screen,
select from the Common Material Properties: albedo, normal, smoothness,
specular, and so on.

Common Material Properties

Use the Render Pipeline Debugger to troubleshoot materials.

See the Render Pipeline Debugger documentation for complete details.

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 Ray tracing
Ray tracing is a technique that can produce more convincing renders than
traditional rasterization. While it has historically been expensive to calculate,
recent developments in hardware acceleration have now made ray tracing
possible for real-time applications.

HDRP includes preview support for ray tracing with select GPU hardware and
the DirectX 12 API. See Getting started with ray tracing for a specific list of
system requirements.

Setup

In order to enable ray tracing (in Preview), you need to change the default
graphics API of your HDRP project to DirectX 12.

Open the Render Pipeline Wizard (Window > Render Pipeline > HD Render
Pipeline Wizard).2 Click Fix All in the HDRP + DXR tab, then restart the Editor.
Follow the Pipeline Wizard prompts to activate any disabled features.

Enable ray tracing in the Render Pipeline Wizard.

2
In Unity 2021, the HDRP Wizard is located under Window > Rendering > HDRP Wizard

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 Follow the instructions to fix any disabled features.

You can also set up ray tracing manually.

Once you enable ray tracing for your project, check that your HDRP Global or
Camera Frame Settings also has ray tracing activated. Make sure you are using
a compatible 64-bit architecture in your Build Settings and validate your scene
objects from Edit > Rendering > Check Scene Content for HDRP Ray Tracing.

Overrides

Ray tracing adds some new Volume overrides and enhances many of the
existing ones in HDRP:

— Ambient Occlusion: Ray-Traced

Ambient Occlusion replaces
its screen-space counterpart.
Unlike SSAO, Ray-Traced Ambient
Occlusion allows you to use off-
screen geometry to generate the
occlusion. This way, the effect
does not disappear or become
inaccurate toward the edge of
frame.

— Light Clusters: Ray tracing divides

your Scene into a grid of 3D cells.
HDRP uses these Light Clusters
to determine the local lighting
whenever a ray hits a surface. It
can then compute light bounces
for certain effects (Ray-Traced
Reflections, Ray-Traced Global
Illumination, and so on).

Screen Space Ambient Occlusion vs Ray-Traced

Ambient Occlusion

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 Use HDRP Debug mode to visualize the Light Clusters as a diagnostic.
Light clusters highlighted in red indicate where the light count has reached
the Maximum Lights per Cell in the HDRP asset. Adjust this setting to
reduce unwanted light leaking or artifacts.

Ray tracing light clusters in Debug mode

— Global Illumination: This is an alternative to Screen Space Global

Illumination and Light Probes for simulating bounced, indirect lighting.
Ray-Traced Global Illumination calculates in real time, and it allows you
to avoid the lengthy offline process of baking lightmaps while yielding
comparable results.

Use the Quality setting for complex interior environments that benefit from
multiple bounces and samples. Performance mode (limited to one sample
and one bounce) works well for exteriors, where the lighting mostly comes
from the primary directional light.

Ray-traced Global Illumination shows bounced lighting in real time.

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 — Reflections: With ray-traced reflections, you
can achieve higher quality reflections than using
Reflection Probes or Screen Space Reflections.
Off-screen meshes appear correctly in the
resulting reflections.

Adjust the Minimum Smoothness and

Smoothness Fade Start values to modify the
threshold that smooth surfaces receive ray-
traced reflections. Increase the Bounces if
necessary (e.g., two mirrors reflecting each
other), but be aware of the performance cost.
Ray-traced Reflections render within the smooth, mirror-like surfaces.

— Shadows: Ray-traced shadows for directional,

point, spot, and rectangle area lights can replace
shadow maps from any opaque GameObjects.
Directional lights can also cast ray-traced
shadows from transparent or translucent
GameObjects.

Ray tracing allows for Percentage-Closer Soft

Shadows (PCSS), where shadows soften as their
distance from the caster increases. This produces
very natural-looking shadows.

HDRP’s directional lights can also generate semi-

transparent, colored shadows. In this example, a
glass surface casts a realistically tinted shadow
on the floor.

— Watch Activate ray tracing with HDRP for a

walkthrough of the High Definition Render
Pipeline’s ray-tracing features in Preview. See the
ray tracing documentation on the HDRP microsite
for more information.A
Ray-traced shadows soften as they fall farther from the caster to achieve a different
effect than with shadow mapping.

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 More resources

— For a video introduction to HDRP’s features, we recommend watching

Achieving high-fidelity graphics with HDRP to accompany this guide.

— If you’re migrating from the Built-In Render Pipeline, see this chart for a
detailed feature comparison between the two render pipelines.

— The HDRP documentation includes a complete breakdown of every feature

in the pipeline.

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 Next steps:
We hope this guide inspires you to try HDRP for your next project.

Remember that the 3D Sample Project is available from the Unity Hub when
you want to explore further. Be sure to check out the additional resources
listed below, and you can always find tips on the Unity Blog or
HDRP community forum.

At Unity, we want to empower artists and developers with the best tools to
build real-time content. Lighting is both an art and a science – and where
these meet, it’s a little bit like magic.

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