Hello guys, I’ve done some research on both pipelines, people seem to say you need bigger team for HDRP and it takes more time, is more complex etc. I did try em out. But I didn’t see much difference in making normal lit shaders etc, both have similar options. HDRP has much more lighting options, which takes more time to adjust, but otherwise don’t seem to consume that much more time than URP? I’m a programmer, not experienced in art, so just would like your opinion, thanks.
I think hdrp is more of a challenge to get performant, Eg hard for mobile games. I don’t use URP so cannot compare.
Yeah that’s right. Then you haven’t thought HDRP is too hard or too complicated to use or run into serious issues? Seems fine? I am planning a project for PC only, mid to high end gaming rigs. So atm HDRP seems like a good choice.
Yes, also if you create your own Assets, in they need more work, more adjustment of (more) texture maps to make them look good. But that doesn’t mean indies or small teams can’t use HDRP, you should just be aware of what is needed and plan accordingly. I am mostly a programmer too and building a solo game using 90% premade Assets, so using HDRP works for me. If you are unsure, finishing a vertical slice or a single level will show you how much work is actually necessary…
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I did find HDRP hard and complicated… I just don’t know if different to URP!!! ;-). There are so many knobs you can adjust, finding the right combination for my own needs took a while. But I am creating movies/animations, so it made sense going for the best quality (so I skipped URP).
The biggest pain I had (am still having!!) was upgrading assets from the asset store. For example, I had a lot of terrains, and they no longer support billboards in HDRP. So lots of grass and flowers etc disappeared when I upgraded. And wind is different. Custom shaders needed redoing. That sort of thing. (I just don’t know how much is different to URP.)
URP also has ton of shaders, if not even more, and also have issues with stuff from asset store not compatible with URP or appear purple etc and u need to fix. So that part seems the same.
I’d say a more complex project requires a larger team.
If you found that most of the features you need is in HDRP, then use it if possible.
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One of the biggest differences that I came to understand is that HDRP allows you to add rich detail to the rendering of assets by adding various types of mapping files for each asset. I imagine that you can use HDRP in place of URP with the same models and their supporting files, and that they will come out about the same, but then you can add additional mapping files to each asset to make them render much better, and that this additional effort can scale to the team size as your project plan permits. For example, a small team on a limited project timeline may only develop the models to the point where they render the same for both pipelines, but a larger team could add more details to the models for HDRP.
If I am wrong, please let me know. This is an assumption I am working from in deciding to go with HDRP or stay with URP, because I don’t want to add more work for myself, but I would like to have an upgrade path to rendering quality if I have the resources.
You cannot build to mobile with HDRP. It’s hardcoded check in the render pipeline that will fail the build if you tried.
IMO, I think it’s pretty easy to choose the pipeline for your game nowadays.
first, default to HDRP then check the following
- If min spec < last gen console = URP
- If you need to support platforms that is not PC or Console = URP
- If your game is 2d = URP
- If you want stylized game = URP
- if you want custom lighting = URP
in general, you’re forced to URP or Built-in when you need either one of the above bullet points.
Stylized game is debatable but I find doing stylized game much easier when you can do custom lighting (which you cannot easily do in HDRP)
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HDRP has a lot more graphical features, which makes it more complex to setup, maintain, and get good performance.
If you are targeting PC and current gen consoles, it can give some amazing visuals without writing a lot of shaders and pipelines yourself. The downside is that you are probably not going to get similar results on mobile (because then you need a 2nd project with URP untill the SRP compatibility comes).
I’d say a small team can use both, it just takes a larger team to take full advantage of all HDRP has to offer
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My project is 3D FPS on consoles and PC, nothing else.
I am not planning on stylized artwork.
I really don’t know what you mean when you say custom lighting though. Can you explain this a bit more and also the differences between the two pipelines as a development effort?
edit: When you say custom lighting, do you mean adjusting the lighting behaviors on the material components, such as specular or diffuse values?
This sounds like what I was thinking, but I don’t want to get bogged down early on with HDRP setting up the scene’s lighting to be about the same as what I could get easily enough with URP. When you say it is more complex to setup, maintain and get good performance, do you mean just trying to get it to render about the same as URP, or at a higher quality level?
(Just looking at the HDRP demo, it looks like quite a bit of extra work is needed to get the scene setup, but that was a higher quality scene which was the point of the demo.)
Both in a way? The default is higher, so it will probably look a bit better, bit that might not be worth the performance penalty.
It’s best to check out the different features (and potential 3rd party URP implementations like volumetric fog) and see what you need
Custom lighting is used for the stylized art. It’s a way to tell Unity how to apply light to your model. Based on this Support for custom lightning in HDRP - Unity Forum post, it is not supported in HDRP by design.
As for the quality of URP vs HDRP, of course HDRP is going to be better. You cannot ‘easily’ get what is possible in HDRP out of the box with URP. You have to write your own stuff or buy shader asset or whatever to play catch up with HDRP
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This page is extremely useful for comparing in detail the features supported by Built-in vs. URP vs. HDRP.
A quick glance through these features, tells me that for our project HDRP is really the only option. URP is completely crippled for our needs.
URP is the right choice if you want to target a large range of platforms from tablet and low-end consoles through to high-end stuff.
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i think when they say “custom lighting” they are talking about custom shaders (made with shader graph)
You can make cool realistic graphics with URP too but that depends on your skills and knowledge about materials, lightmaps and post effects like color grading and stuffs, With HDRP of course you will need more time to achieve what you want, there are cool tutorials on unity’s youtube channel about HDRP, it is more complex, you will need more time learning HDRP and understanding the (sometime useless) many options and the workflow, is complicated, try to show us some screenshots of other games and graphics you want to acheve and with those references we can help you to decide better the RP you need 
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They just say you can’t done with shader graph, which not mean can’t be done with shader lab
Sure. “Does not support” doesn’t mean literally impossible. But the amount of effort is not worth it. if you want custom lighting then why bother with HDRP exposure base physical lighting in the first place when there is better choice right there for you to choose.
For the most part, A users input is going to be based on their skill sets and their previous experiences with Unity.
You don’t need a team with HDRP, you would just have an easier time if you’re more disciplined with your skill set(s) HDRP scales well with end hardware and workflows. If you’re familiar with data structures and back end development stacks then you’ll likely have a much easier time integrating into and onboarding/scaling with additional people. This is mostly because everything is already structured, you just need to implement your workflows and tweak the technical and artistic designs with knowledge and a good preprep.
Something of “erroneous” or general frustration many people have is:
- Unitys additional steps to have something work as intended or soon something
- Integrating by force past knowledge of other pipelines.
- Lighting
Lighting appears to be many people’s challenges and this could potentially be a workflow issue of Unity’s+ developers in unity platform have a higher density toward programming skills over design or lighting ( as this is also an after process of Unity as well)
I think if you’re a competent C++ programmer or generally pretty switched on with programming, you will have a much easier time with HDRP and overall unity, solo or otherwise, but its also pretty welcoming if you already have backgrounds in certain creative industries like Film or photography and animation, especially when it comes to lighting and design.
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