Synth Vibes 😎
Let's hype the mood up a bit with this great track, just right for the afternoon ahead.
This post looks at some of the differences I'm finding in Unity between VFX and material shaders.
URP & HDRP Rendering
Unity has a range of rendering pipelines for creators to use, depending on the type of project they're working on. The High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP) delivers the most realistic final results in terms of materials and visual effects (VFX), but only suits platforms with greater capabilities like desktops, for example. Universal Render Pipeline (URP) is made to deliver close to realistic results on lighter platforms like mobiles. So if your application is going to run across different platforms, then URP will provide fairly consistent results.
VFX Shaders
While VFX are available in the URP, there are limitations. For example, creating a fire with smoke that rises from the flames is possible in a URP VFX shader, but the flames will not project light on to the smoke's particles (at least as far as I can tell, the option isn't available for Lit particle effects).
Material Shaders
I've found that material shaders in URP can be created with a Lit feature, and therefore these can be used to create similar effects but perhaps not quite as detailed as those possible with HDRP. I'll be working on a flame shader this afternoon. One thing I already know is that the Albedo setting doesn't seem to be available in the URP Master Stack. We'll see how we go.
Stay awesome,
EMH
