Failing to set instanced property using BatchRendererGroup.GetBatchVectorArray

Hi. I've been able to set the transform of objects and handle batching of objects using the BatchRendererGroup but so far I've failed to be able to set instance properties without using MaterialPropertyBlocks. For this question, I need to use GetBatchVectorArray.

The material being used does have gpu-instancing enabled.

It's probably something very simple I'm missing but any help you can provide would be awesome

The code below is available as a project here: https://github.com/cbaggers/BRG_Test

This is my code (which is successfully drawing the cube and rotating it):

Code (CSharp):

1. using UnityEngine;
2. using UnityEngine.Rendering;
3. using Unity.Jobs;
4.  
5. public class BatchRendererGroupTest : MonoBehaviour
6. {
7.     // Allow us to set the mesh and material from the inspector
8.     public GameObject ObjectWeGetTheMeshFrom;
9.     public Material _material;
10.  
11.     // The batch.
12.     BatchRendererGroup _brg;
13.     int _batch;
14.  
15.     void OnEnable()
16.     {
17.         _brg = new BatchRendererGroup(CullingCallback);
18.  
19.         var mesh = ObjectWeGetTheMeshFrom.GetComponent<MeshFilter>().sharedMesh;
20.  
21.         _batch = _brg.AddBatch(mesh, 0, _material, 0, castShadows: ShadowCastingMode.On,
22.                    receiveShadows: true, invertCulling: false,
23.                    bounds: new Bounds(Vector3.one * 10, Vector3.one * 20),
24.                    instanceCount: 1, customProps: null,
25.                    associatedSceneObject: null);
26.     }
27.  
28.     void OnDisable()
29.     {
30.         _brg.Dispose();
31.     }
32.  
33.     void Update()
34.     {
35.         // Spin the cube. Proves that the batch is reading the matrices just fine
36.         var transforms = _brg.GetBatchMatrices(_batch);
37.         transforms[0] = Matrix4x4.Rotate(Quaternion.Euler(Mathf.Sin(Time.time) * 180, Mathf.Sin(Time.time) * 180, Mathf.Cos(Time.time) * 180));
38.  
39.         // I thought this would set the color in the shader but it isn't working for me
40.         var instVals = _brg.GetBatchVectorArray(_batch, "_Color");
41.         instVals[0] = new Vector4(0, 1, 0, 1);
42.     }
43.  
44.     // You can safely ignore this. It is just a pass-throught that performs no culling
45.     JobHandle CullingCallback(BatchRendererGroup rendererGroup, BatchCullingContext cullingContext)
46.     {
47.         // dummy culling
48.         for (var batchIndex = 0; batchIndex < cullingContext.batchVisibility.Length; ++batchIndex)
49.         {
50.             var batchVisibility = cullingContext.batchVisibility[batchIndex];
51.  
52.             for (var i = 0; i < batchVisibility.instancesCount; ++i)
53.             {
54.                 cullingContext.visibleIndices[batchVisibility.offset + i] = i;
55.             }
56.  
57.             batchVisibility.visibleCount = batchVisibility.instancesCount;
58.             cullingContext.batchVisibility[batchIndex] = batchVisibility;
59.         }
60.         return default;
61.     }
62. }
63.  

And here is the shader:

Code (CSharp):

1. Shader "BRG_Test"
2. {
3.     Properties
4.     {
5.         _Color("Color 0", Color) = (0, 0, 1, 0) // Default color blue, we are trying to set this green from the script
6.     }
7.  
8.     SubShader
9.     {
10.         Tags{ "RenderType" = "Opaque"  "Queue" = "Geometry+0" }
11.         Cull Back
12.         CGPROGRAM
13.         #pragma target 5.0
14.         #pragma multi_compile_instancing
15.         #pragma surface surf Standard keepalpha addshadow fullforwardshadows
16.         struct Input
17.         {
18.             half filler;
19.         };
20.  
21.         UNITY_INSTANCING_BUFFER_START(BRG_Test)
22.             UNITY_DEFINE_INSTANCED_PROP(float4, _Color)
23. #define _Color_arr BRG_Test
24.         UNITY_INSTANCING_BUFFER_END(BRG_Test)
25.  
26.         void surf( Input i , inout SurfaceOutputStandard o )
27.         {
28.             float4 _Color_Instance = UNITY_ACCESS_INSTANCED_PROP(_Color_arr, _Color);
29.             o.Albedo = _Color_Instance.rgb;
30.             o.Alpha = 1;
31.         }
32.  
33.         ENDCG
34.     }
35.     Fallback "Diffuse"
36. }

 

did you end up with a solution ?

 

@Opeth001 unfortunately the problem was that GetBatchVectorArray and co don't work with the built in renderer. You have to be using SRP. I wish that had been documented somewhere at the time.

edit: I've removed the 'help wanted' so I dont waste anyone else's time. Hope you have better luck with your issues

 

Btw I'm using SRP and it's not working too.
Have a nice day