TextMeshPro and Single Pass Instanced stereo rendering

Right now, if XR settings use "Single Pass Instanced (Preview)", you only see the text in the left eye (and not the right).

I saw another thread where someone added the instancing goo to their local copy of the TMP shader and claimed that fixed the rendering. While that is the best solution I've found, it doesn't seem very maintainable. I'm wondering if there is a better way to do this, and if not, is support going to be added to a future version?

 

I have fixed this on my end, but it would be nice if I didn't have to manage this issue every time a new project is using stereo instancing. It only takes a few minutes per shader to implement the fix. Should I post one of the fixed shaders to give you an idea of what to do?

 

Here's one of the shaders that have been updated to support stereo instancing. Compare it to the original to see what was changed so you can update the rest. Hope this helps out some people.

 

@Stephan_B I'm not entirely sure if I'm doing something wrong.

• I've updated TextMeshPro to 1.5.0 preview 2
• I've created a Text (TMP) and placed it infront of the camera
• The Text is automatically using the TextMeshPro/Mobile/Distance Field shader
• I'm looking at it under Windows Universal Platform with the Mixed Reality Headset

The text renders to one eye only. Isn't that supposed to be fixed or do I have to pick a shader manually?

Edit: The Distance Field (surface) shader seems to be capable of rendering correctly

Why is the updated shader not in the package yet, it's from April?

 

Seems like this was solved last year. But I still have this problem when using HDRP single pass instanced. Are there also special shaders to make TMP work? I tried the Distance Field (surface) but this one is not supported in HDRP.

I'm using HDRP 7.3 on Unity 2019.3.9 with TMP 1.0.54.

 

Hey @Stephan_B, I've got the latest (3.0.1) and have freshly imported the TMP Essential Resources, but it still only renders in the left eye in my Single Pass Instancing VR project. I've seen a few other recent threads about this. Was there a regression or is there a way to fix this?

 

Same here, any news on this topic?

 

We fixed it by re-importing the essential resources. We thought that will be done, when upgrading the package via the package manager, but this is not the case.

So for other people which may have an outdated tmp package or the sympthoms like above (missing font on left/right eye in vr)

* Update to newest version of tmp via the package maanger
* Window/TextMeshPro/Import TMP Essential Resources -> There you will see that some shaders are outdated

 

Thanks for sharing your solution @Zapan15 !

 

@Zapan15 your a life saver! thanks for posting this solution.

Had it before in 2017 and later in 2018. Now I just updated project to 2019.4 and again the TMP problem. But your fix fixed it. Will it batch render / instance the text shader now as well? Especially in VR when using a lot of TMP objects I noticed a big jump in CPU usage caused by TMP in the render pass in prevous versions of unity

 

You are welcome!

Batching works here.

 

Sadly his didn't work for us, no clue why as I could have sworn the UI was working before we implemented a Custom render pass. (Turned the pass off, but it had no affect.)

 

* Window/TextMeshPro/Import TMP Essential Resources this worked for me

 

I'm having the same issue with it not rendering in one eye, and also it skews as you rotate your head if that adds any pieces to the puzzle. Importing TMP Essential resources had no effect (other than breaking two of the shaders due to a bad #import path which I had to resolve by manually editing the shaders). This is on 2021.3.18f1, and TMPro package 3.0.6. Also using URP 12.1.10.

I just upgraded from 2019.4 where everything was working correctly. And since upgrading, I've also noticed that this same skew and one-eyed rendering is happening to all my other existing CG-based shaders, despite them previously working correctly in URP 7.7.1. Long ago I added all the things needed for stereo instanced rendering mentioned here:

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/SinglePassInstancing.html

But now in 2021 and URP 12.1.10, they are only rendering in one eye and warp when the head is rotated. I hope this helps zero in on the TMPro issue as it seems identical to these issues and therefore likely related since they are all still in CG like all the other shaders that exhibit this same weirdness. All my HLSL and Shadergraph shaders seem to work fine.