Per-instance material params support in Entities 0.2!

Nice, thanks for alerting us

I replicated this in URP quickly, so full example below:
Just remember, to add the hybrid renderer now you have to select 'Add package from git URL' in the package manager and type: "com.unity.rendering.hybrid" (without quotes).

I have the following script on an empty game object with the ConvertToEntity component.

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. using Unity.Entities;
3. using Unity.Mathematics;
4. using Unity.Rendering;
5. using Unity.Transforms;
6. using UnityEngine;
7.  
8. public class CreateItems : MonoBehaviour, IConvertGameObjectToEntity
9. {
10.     [Tooltip("Prefab used for test items")]
11.     [SerializeField]
12.     private GameObject itemTemplate;
13.  
14.     public void Convert(Entity entity, EntityManager dstManager, GameObjectConversionSystem conversionSystem)
15.     {
16.         GameObjectConversionSettings settings = GameObjectConversionSettings.FromWorld(World.DefaultGameObjectInjectionWorld, null);
17.         var prefabEntity = GameObjectConversionUtility.ConvertGameObjectHierarchy(itemTemplate, settings);
18.  
19.         float shade1 = 0.1f;
20.         float shade2 = 0.5f;
21.  
22.         for (float x = -10f; x < 20f; x += 2.6f)
23.         {
24.             var item = dstManager.Instantiate(prefabEntity);
25.  
26.             Translation tr = new Translation
27.             {
28.                 Value = new float3(x, 0, 0)
29.             };
30.  
31.             MaterialColor mc = new MaterialColor
32.             {
33.                 Value = new float4(shade1, shade2, 0, 1)
34.             };
35.  
36.             dstManager.SetComponentData<Translation>(item, tr);
37.             dstManager.SetComponentData<MaterialColor>(item, mc);
38.  
39.             shade1 = shade1 >= 1f ? 0.1f : shade1 + 0.1f;
40.             shade2 = shade2 >= 1f ? 0.1f : shade2 + 0.1f;
41.         }
42.     }
43. }

With the shader, as for DerEros:


The prefab just has a material with this shader, otherwise it's just a standard cube. Just add prefab to script in inspector.

Result:


Thanks again to DerEros!

 

Just wanted to note that the above walkthrough almost worked perfectly - I had to set up a Material Override Asset as explained in the docs: https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.rendering.hybrid@0.10/manual/material_overrides.html

 

Thanks to all the above help posted so far. Incase it saves the next person a few minutes or so, I got it working with a text shader by reverse engineering from a shader graph made one to get the required defines I was missing.

I needed to add these defines in:

Code (CSharp):

1. #if defined(UNITY_DOTS_INSTANCING_ENABLED)
2.             // DOTS instancing definitions
3.             UNITY_DOTS_INSTANCING_START(MaterialPropertyMetadata)
4.                 UNITY_DOTS_INSTANCED_PROP(float, _FillValue)
5.             UNITY_DOTS_INSTANCING_END(MaterialPropertyMetadata)
6.             // DOTS instancing usage macros
7.             #define _FillValue UNITY_ACCESS_DOTS_INSTANCED_PROP_FROM_MACRO(float, Metadata__FillValue)
8.             #endif

 

How would you instance a texture? Is that even possible? I thought it's one of the hallmarks of the SRP batcher, but...neill it have to be a shared component data?

 

You can instance a texture atlas or a texture array but you cannot instance a texture by itself.

 

Is it possible at all to use this with the build-in render pipeline? Or are instance material params solely used with URP/HDRP? It’s unsettling to see 10,000 boids flying towards you while flapping at the exact same time...

 

No. It only works with Scriptable Render Pipelines. There is a separate workflow for built-in and surface shaders which is pretty easy if you've touched the Graphics API before, but there is no out-of-the-box solution currently.

 

Well that’s a shame... is there any documentation that might get me started on that?

 

Sorry if you meant HRv2 case, but if you speaking about a built-in pipeline with HRv1 (which is only supported for built-in in opposite to v2 only for SRP) and MaterialPropertyAttribute (not MPB) then it's not entirely correct. Of course, we can use DrawMesh(Instanced(Indirect))\DrawProcedural and MaterialPropertyBlock or any own solution based on constant\structured buffers, but if you just want to use HRv1 and don't want to write your own solution you can use MaterialPropertyAttribute in ECS land and in shader use it like:




As all used in MaterialPropertyAttribute shader properties will be compiled to CBUFFER with _Array postfix which elements you can access easily.

And one more thing is profiling performance with\without PerInstanceCullingTag, as in our case performance was much better without it, and we reduced 5ms of culling on CPU without noticeable cost on GPU for things like units, buildings and animals in our RTS. But again this is valid only for HRv1 with built-in and users should use it very carefully

 

Thanks @eizenhorn! I actually did not know HRv1 could work with surface shaders that way. HRv1 was always too slow to be usable beyond 10k entities for me, and I don't recall culling being the bottleneck. Instead it had something to do with HRv1 reflecting properties on the main thread and then doing something funky with initializing dynamic batches that was really slow. Graphics.DrawMeshInstancedProcedural was an order of magnitude faster for me.

 

Sorry for massive necroing this thread, but can you elaborate how you did this?
I am currently suck with BuiltIn Render Pipeline and would really love per instance data working.