LWRP, HDRP or bulit-in renderer for VR?

Hey All,

What do you prefer to use at present for VR projects LWRP, HDRP or bulit-in renderer?

I've setup my own template (https://forum.unity.com/threads/community-vr-template.725498/) using the LWRP using Unity 2019.2, but that was only because Unity 2019.1 had a template based on LWRP so I followed suit .

From what I understand LWRP is a good forward thinking choice for VR that should work on mobile and desktop. What I don't know is what is the experience like using it on projects today? Its not long out of preview?

In a similar vein is HDRP a good choice for a forward thinking desktop only high end visual VR experience? Whats the experience like today? Stable?

I'm a little new to 3D in general and its a bit difficult to make a choice when your still learning about the fine details and how things render in detail. Armed with that knowledge would I be better served with the 'old' built-in renderer for now for VR projects, might be easier to find my feet there, more info online etc?

Appreciate any advice, cheers!

 

I've just been using the standard renderer. But I have no particular support for this, other than it works and I have little experience with LWRP.

 

I'm still finding that no matter what libraries I install through the package manager, it throws errors. Namespace problems, unable to find locations of files. Not a good starting experience, especially when I tried Unity learn and find out that the tutorial I am using has never been updated with the REAL fixes that people had to do to get them working, meanwhile more and more potential developers are banging their heads on the wall and reading that Unreal gives a better out of the box starting experience. Kind of disappointed. But I'm still trying to get a basic project started that doesn't throw errors after nothing more than a plane is added.

 

Cheers @JoeStrout Been mooching and from what I can gather I think a lot of folks are still using the standard renderer as well.

@Booter Yes, I'm not that far in with Unity myself and I feel your pain. I'm also playing with Unreal and although its quite a beast right from the off I've not run into any issues with it like I have with Unity (well, yet anyway), other then the fact there's so much to take in.

Right now I feel I can do stuff in Unity in VR (it did take a lot of falling over though) and I've focused on it because I know a little C# and have played with Unity for a 2D game a long time ago and I just like how it works.

That said I want to give Unreal some more time though now I know I have a solution with Unity. Then I'll know what the right engine is for me for these projects.

What engine will get you to deliver your projects on time with the vision you had when you started it, who knows, just got to try them out, both of them are awesome, we are spoiled nowadays! Warning, old(ish) man here hahaha.

** EDIT Thought I'd update this now I've had a little more time with UE4 and VR with it.

Whilst the out of the box experience for VR is currently faster to get going with in UE4 (I found), stepping beyond the basics is far far more complex, again just my views. For me and the projects I'm currently working its not making sense to use UE4 right now.

I'm able to be productive in Unity today, enjoy the architecture, C# is a win for me (I used it many years ago) and most importantly Unity has the features I need in a way I understand pretty quickly as a new(ish) person to the world real time 3D rendering and VR. I demoed a simple 360 video player and 2D video 'screen' in VR and a virtual environment yesterday to a customer who was impressed, how long would it be before I reached that level in Unreal? I don't know but it would be a longer road to get there and time is a commodity I try to use wisely (yes, I'm old .

 

Im using the standard foward renderer for my Steam VR based Unity projects.

I recently tested both LWRP and HDRP and I feel like they both are not ready to use for VR yet. I couldnt get HDRP to work in VR at all and LWRP has some major limitations like no real-time GI and no shadows for point lights.

 

Thanks @markjanzen88

From what you guys have put here and other mooching and sniffing around I think for now the standard forward built-in renderer is currently the most stable option with least friction as a relative newbie to 3D projects in Unity.

Still looking forward to seeing LWRP & HWRP mature though and playing with things like shader graph etc.

 

I tried numerous times to get HDRP to work with VR, and it will... for a while. I finally tracked down the worst offender, and it's the fact that HDRP is very finnicky with multiple cameras. VR requires two, and it's supposed to support VR fine, but it's just not ready. I battled pure black/white screen problems for days. I finally conceded and switched to the standard renderer. If HDRP wasn't so damned gorgeous, I would've switched sooner.

If you still wanna try HDRP, be aware cameras and exposure settings are the enemy. Namely, if you're using the Oculus SDK, pay special attention to the Left, Center, and Right eye anchors that have cameras. Stuff gets downright strange sometimes.