Is it possible to have transparents using the 2D renderer in URP?

Chris_Chu · Feb 7, 2023

@rubendariohh Actually I'm curious to know what you plan to use this for. I was realizing the sample I sent might work in some cases, but will not in others.

noofbahabri · Feb 25, 2023

Lo-renzo said: ↑

@oscurekid There are a couple problems.

1. Forward Renderer Data vs 2D Renderer Data. Look at your Renderer List on the Universal Render Pipeline Asset. It lists the New 2D Renderer Data. Simply put, you do NOT want Forward Renderer Data. You can delete it. You're adding your Renderer Feature to the Forward Renderer Data, not the "New 2D Renderer Data" asset. Even if you added your Renderer Feature to the correct asset, it still wouldn't work and is also unnecessary.

2. You're using Scene Color in your Shader Graph. You do NOT want that. The 2D Renderer does NOT create a _CameraOpaqueTexture, which is what the Scene Color pulls from. The 2D Renderer doesn't use opaques, just transparents, so that's why the special _CameraSortingLayerTexture was developed. It takes a snapshot of the colors on your screen at a particular Sorting Layer of the transparent render pass.

------

How to fix so it works in shader and is populated (with a non-gray texture!) by the 2D Renderer.

(A) Fix your Shader Graph. Add a new Property on the Blackboard called CameraSortingLayerTexture and make sure its reference is _CameraSortingLayerTexture exactly. Then UNCHECK Exposed. This tells Unity to pull this property from a global texture, which is exactly what we want. Then sample your CameraSortingLayerTexture, replacing SceneColor. Plug in your distorted UVs into the UVs of the Sample Texture2D node.

(B) Fix the creation of _CameraSortingLayerTexture. On the 2D Renderer Data (for you, "New 2D Renderer Data"), go to the Camera Sorting Layer Texture section and choose a Sorting Layer. This sorting layer is when the snapshot of the current screen colors is taken. Create a Sorting Layer that's AFTER the colors you want to distort. The SpriteRenderer with your distortion material needs to have a Sorting Layer AFTER that snapshot or else you'll get the last frame's colors and it will be very weird.

So your scene will render in this order:
[some colors from background sprites]
[take snapshot of those colors @ Sorting Layer 2]
[distort that snapshot of colors @ Sorting Layer 3]
[anything else that renders after Sorting Layer 3]

For a working demo, check out the CameraSortingLayerTexture scene and folder here: https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/2d-renderer-samples/tree/21.1
Click to expand...

this is amazing thank you so much, u r my hero

JCvetko · Sep 19, 2023

Any news on multiple CameraSortingLayerTexture?

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