Official Experimental 2D Lights and Shader Graph support in Universal RP (previously LWRP)

I have two sprites that overlap and both are semi-transparent. The alpha blends as normal, but for a certain Shader Graph I want to stop this because it looks bad and it's nearly impossible to get them to line up perfectly.

(overbright line in center between two sprites)

Instead, I want to preserve the larger alpha at the overlap . I'm not sure how to do this. I tried accessing External Alpha _AlphaTex (is this right place?), but when I define a Texture2D on the blackboard by this name it'll throw an exception.

Shader error in 'Shader Graphs/HighlightGradientShader': redefinition of '_AlphaTex' at .../Library/PackageCache/com.unity.render-pipelines.universal@7.3.1/Editor/ShaderGraph/Includes/SpriteUnlitPass.hlsl(2) (on d3d11)

Compiling Vertex program with ETC1_EXTERNAL_ALPHA
Platform defines: UNITY_ENABLE_REFLECTION_BUFFERS UNITY_USE_DITHER_MASK_FOR_ALPHABLENDED_SHADOWS UNITY_PBS_USE_BRDF1 UNITY_SPECCUBE_BOX_PROJECTION UNITY_SPECCUBE_BLENDING UNITY_ENABLE_DETAIL_NORMALMAP SHADER_API_DESKTOP UNITY_COLORSPACE_GAMMA UNITY_LIGHT_PROBE_PROXY_VOLUME UNITY_LIGHTMAP_FULL_HDR

Is there a way around this?

 

Hi first of all thanks for all the hard work! Is there any news on this subject? I have a bunch of shaders i would like to use and they need the scene color or _cameraOpaqueTexture. I have tried using a second camera but I loose to much performance only by enabling a second camera.

 

There's a lot of us in the same boat, just waiting on this last feature to complete a game. Any bit of information on whether I should go another route, or continue to wait, would be greatly helpful...

The problem is that I have no clue whether the time frame is like 2 months, or a year plus?

 

Does the latest URP 10 experimental version has any changes made to the 2DRenderer? Does _OpaqueTexture works in there? (for 2DRenderer)

 

Just dove into the Universal rendering pipeline last night after finding out what it actually offered for 2D scenes (2D Lighting, mainly.) Really cool stuff! The first thing I wanted to use it for was a Halloween scene I had recently made with jack-o'-lanterns, so I decided to write a script which would emulate a candle flicker effect. After looking at the options in the inspector for the Light2D component, I noticed that modifying the falloffIntensity would provide the best effect for this. Much to my dismay, this variable is read only when trying to modify it in code.
Is there any reason for this?

Searching online for this found only one result, and it seems someone also wanted to do something similar at one point.

https://forum.unity.com/threads/is-it-possible-to-change-falloffintensity-from-script.729545/

Please expose this for us! Thank you!

 

It took me a long time to figure out that this is why my shader wasn't working properly.
Is there a place where we could formally express interest in having this feature available?
I need it very much! Please

 

Thanks again Chris, as always. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but does this mean the Scene Color node should work in Shader Graph now?

Also, do you know if the SRP batcher has been implemented in the 2d renderer yet? Having trouble getting sprites with same material to batch, and the only thing google is returning is older post from this forum saying it doesn't work yet.
Using the latest version of 2020.1

 

Thanks for the hard work and listening to our request! Highly appreciated. As soon as I can I would give this a try

 

Also interested in this. Batching of any sort seems broken right now.

 

Hi! I have tried several times now to get this into my project but I was not able to do so. I think mainly because i don´t understand what I need to do.
I cloned the repository and through the package manager installed the core, shadergraph and 2D renderer .Json files but after this i get several errors similar the one i quote next.

C:\Users\Teky\Documents\GitHub\Graphics\com.unity.render-pipelines.core\Runtime\Utilities\CoreUtils.cs(891,20): error CS1061: 'ComputeShader' does not contain a definition for 'EnableKeyword' and no accessible extension method 'EnableKeyword' accepting a first argument of type 'ComputeShader' could be found.

I tried also just replacing the runtime and editor folders with the ones in my library, and i get no errors but also nothing new (No dropdown under 2d pipeline Asset).

Sorry if Im being a pain :O but i really have no idea where I am standing here, Thanks !

 

Great thanks I Will try this then...
Just to clarify, I am using 2019.4.8 LTS when you say I need the latest Unity version, you mean porting my Project to a 2020 version or update to the latest 2019.4.8.1 version because there might be a lot of work involved in porting to 2020. Just to know...

Thanks again!

 

Hi，how was the work on performance going？I recently upgrade to Unity2020.1 with URP8.2，the Light2D still have bad performance on android platform.

 

I use one global light(5 target layers) and 6 point lights(3 target layers) in my scene. I use Tmeline to control the point lights and make them on at night. But when the point lights are on，the frame rate decrease 20~30. It seems that those point lights out of the camera are still rendering. I have tried reduce the renderer texture scale to 0.3 and reduce sorting layers，but the performance is still bad on Android platform(CPU is Qualcomm Snapdragon 835，RAM 6GB).

 

I have 7 layers and 6 sorting layers and I am not using shadow because using shadow will decrease additional 10~20 FPS.

 

Thanks Chris，I will keep trying

 

Hello ! Is there any reason for this in ShadowCaster2D ? At least TryGetComponent would be nice... but I wonder why we should try to find the renderer every frame.

 

Is it possible to move generated shadow mesh to a certain order in layer compared to other sprites? At the moment shadow is always above everything, but I want my explosion to be above shadow. Tried Z-values, Sorting Group on shadow caster item and light caster item. Unity 2019-3.

 

Will Target Sorting Layers property be exposed to runtime in 2020.2?

 

I'm spending a lot of time debugging the error `More than one global light on layer...` `UnityEngine.Networking.NetworkManagerHUD:Update()`. This error happens for each Sorting layer on unet Host start. Then I read the code:

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. // This should be rewritten to search only global lights
3. List<Light2D> lights = s_Instance.m_Lights[blendStyleIndex];
4.  

in Light2D.cs.

I'm working with multiplayer... (unet is the only LTS option now I think? and it's deprecated...)

I'm sure that there's only one GlobalLight2D. I tried so many ways, but maybe the GlobalLight2D object is in a server or client that is not being stopped/destroyed somewhere? I can only see one GlobalLight2D though.

The error seems to happen at a point which is too fast for me to stop, but I'm not sure if that is a network issue.

Should this be fixed in Light2D.cs or is it actually fine? I'll probably find a solution for this, but I'll just keep this here for reference.

Related to @Ferazel 's reply.

 

Changed the type of light to anything other than Global, all the errors go away. Some of the error checks are done during OnEnable() that's maybe why I couldn't do a check on scene change.

Edit: I no longer have any issues with using Global Light in multiplayer, but I'm now just wondering if this error check really needs to be different from the other lights. If it does, no problem.

 

Чтe water shader with scene color node haven't been rendening since July, so I can't continue makeing the game. I use 2020.1. Shall I update to 2020.2 beta or I should wait until 2022?

 

I haven't tested this but it may be possible to use a scene color node even with transparency-queue sprites if you render your scene first to a render texture used by an opaque material which is rendered with a second camera. That makes your whole scene opaque. Then you can have some transparent material on top of that which then has access to the scene color. But I'm not sure about that. What's the context in which you need it?

 

Hey guys, so as most of us here, I want to use the _ColorOpaqueTexture, what I managed so far

First there is also no way to use custom render features in the 2d renderer, but that was an easy fix, we just need this:

https://github.com/Erdroy/ScriptableRenderPipeline/commit/38655346a64e6678fecd813ddadf294ed383dca6

I saw in a post here (forgot wich) and that adds custom render features to the 2d Renderer, it's not really up to date, but it's not hard to implement on the current version of the URP something similar. It's working I've made a pass that adds image fx with custom materials.

Now we need to create a render pass that saves the content of the screen to a global texture.

So i found this:
https://github.com/johnsietsma/ExtendingLWRP/tree/master/Assets/BlurryRefraction

It creates a blurry copy of the scene in a texture called "_GrabBlurTexture" witch is accessible in HLSL shaders (no idea how to access in shader graph, but at least it's something.

So now i just need to make a not blurred version of this so far my code is:

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. using UnityEngine.Rendering;
3. using UnityEngine.Rendering.Universal;
4.  
5. namespace UnityEngine.Experiemntal.Rendering.Universal
6. {
7.     /// <summary>
8.     /// Copy the given color buffer to the given destination color buffer.
9.     ///
10.     /// You can use this pass to copy a color buffer to the destination,
11.     /// so you can use it later in rendering. For example, you can copy
12.     /// the opaque texture to use it for distortion effects.
13.     /// </summary>
14.     internal class GrabPassPass : ScriptableRenderPass
15.     {
16.         public FilterMode filterMode { get; set; }
17.         private RenderTargetIdentifier source { get; set; }
18.         private RenderTargetHandle destination { get; set; }
19.  
20.         RenderTargetHandle m_TemporaryColorTexture;
21.         string m_ProfilerTag;
22.  
23.         /// <summary>
24.         /// Create the CopyColorPass
25.         /// </summary>
26.         public GrabPassPass(RenderPassEvent renderPassEvent, string tag)
27.         {
28.             this.renderPassEvent = renderPassEvent;
29.             m_ProfilerTag = tag;
30.             m_TemporaryColorTexture.Init("_TemporaryColorTexture");
31.         }
32.  
33.         /// <summary>
34.         /// Configure the pass with the source and destination to execute on.
35.         /// </summary>
36.         /// <param name="source">Source Render Target</param>
37.         /// <param name="destination">Destination Render Target</param>
38.         public void Setup(RenderTargetIdentifier source, RenderTargetHandle destination)
39.         {
40.             this.source = source;
41.             this.destination = destination;
42.         }
43.  
44.         /// <inheritdoc/>
45.         public override void Execute(ScriptableRenderContext context, ref RenderingData renderingData)
46.         {
47.             CommandBuffer cmd = CommandBufferPool.Get(m_ProfilerTag);
48.  
49.             RenderTextureDescriptor opaqueDesc = renderingData.cameraData.cameraTargetDescriptor;
50.             opaqueDesc.depthBufferBits = 0;
51.  
52.             cmd.GetTemporaryRT(m_TemporaryColorTexture.id, opaqueDesc, filterMode);
53.  
54.             cmd.SetGlobalTexture("_CameraOpaqueTexture", m_TemporaryColorTexture.id);
55.             cmd.ReleaseTemporaryRT(m_TemporaryColorTexture.id);
56.  
57.             context.ExecuteCommandBuffer(cmd);
58.             CommandBufferPool.Release(cmd);
59.         }
60.  
61.         /// <inheritdoc/>
62.         public override void FrameCleanup(CommandBuffer cmd)
63.         {
64.             //if (destination == RenderTargetHandle.CameraTarget)
65.             cmd.ReleaseTemporaryRT(m_TemporaryColorTexture.id);
66.         }
67.     }
68. }

That is not working properly (because i honestly have no idea what is happening here i was mostly just messing around), it's not cleaning the texture properly so it turns black after some time, and also for some reason is taking into account the scene camera, not the game one, but it's kinda working (even the shader graph node scene color) and is saving the content of the camera.
I fell it's not far from the solution. Can anyone help me out here?

 

Is it planned to add emissive color to 2D renderer, so some pixels of a sprite ignore lighting completely? Is there any time estimation? Is there any way I can do that at the moment by modifying the URP?
Thanks.

 

Can I take into account white space (Orange) when lighting in 2D? Is there anything I can do to accommodate this space?

 

Looks like Target Sorting Layers is still not availabe in code in 2020.2

Will it be at some point? Any workarounds?
@Chris_Chu

 

Does anyone know how I would make an object be invisible in sections that are in a shadow from a certain point light source?

I've got a global light & it's set to not target this objects layer, but this results in a black cut-out in the location of the object.



If I don't have a global light, this works fine - but this isn't ideal. Any ideas? Thanks

 

Still not available on 2021.1a?

 

Please add emission channel to the lighting!

 

@Chris_Chu was there any progress on global light direction? I was testing out the 2d lighting system recently and when using normal maps, the global light direction would be very welcomed.

if not, whats the best way to simulate sunlight direction with normal mapped sprites? I was thinking of a huge point light that follows the camera...or just set my game at night

 

Okay, here is 2021.1. Scene color node is still broken. Is it again not in priority even in 2021?

 

In that same area, I wanted to change the light2d freeform shape path by script, such that I can determine the light shape dynamically at runtime. This would be necessary for my stealth game. However, I found out that these properties are get-only as well. Would it be possible to expose these properties in the next release? If this is not possible in the near future, is there some way to contribute to or fork the package that allows me to easily upgrade to the official package at a later time?

 

I saw this feature mentioned in 2021.1 beta blog post. I haven't found any documentation on it yet. I tried creating a texture in shader graph with reference "_CameraSortingLayerTexture" but nothing comes of it. Will this be officially or widely supported on official 2021.1 release?

 

Hi Guys, I've been playing with the 2D lighting with tilemaps (Unity 2020.1.17), and I'm experiencing an issue with blendstyles.
As you can see below, in Playmode, the light only affects some parts of the tilemap, and not at all like what I was expecting.


On the other hand, in editor, it does look like what I was intending to make:


Any idea what's causing this behaviour?

 

I'll file a bug report then.

I also found out why it's acting like that. The lighting won't work if the sprites are stored in a SpriteAtlas.

 

Hi Chris,

Have there been any changes to the public API on the Light2D component yet? Some key things that were missing before were the ability to change target sorting layers, freeform light polygon.

It's so sad to see features that we can change in editor being hidden / encapsulated so they can't be changed from csharp code. I rely heavily on custom editor scripts as part of the workflow in design time, and I can't automate anything about these lights because so much of the editor functionality has been obfuscated.

 

Well, they have removed the Falloff offset for the freeform lights... that's a change (bad for me )

 

2021.1.3f1. Still not fixed.