Lens flare not showing up in game window using Universal Render Pipeline URP (2019.3)

Questions & Answers
1

I just want to use Lens Flare in my game, but sometimes is so difficult to do simple things in unity. I imported Unity Standard Assets (Effects) that comes with lens flare. I tried everything and the Lens flare only show in Scene view, not in Game view why? I’m using URP, This works in URP?

Everything I tried

  • My camera has the flare layer turned on
  • My camera has a flare layer.
  • The lens flare is positioned in front of the camera and not show up.
  • The lens flare is marked as directional in a light gameobject that is the sun of scene
  • Also tested lens flare not attached to a light, just attached in a empty game object
  • The lens flare has directional unchecked, also tested with directional checked.
  • Every object is on default layer
  • The lens flare is set to ignore nothing
  • The camera’s far plane is 1000
  • The flare is show up perfectly in Scene view
  • There are no colliders between camera
  • The flare has a texture imported from standard asset and is bright enough
  • The flare has a correct fade speed that shows the flare quickly
  • There is no setup options for flare in Universal Render Pipeline, not even in Player, and Quality tab in preferences.
  • I’ve tried to attach the flare to a point light. There is no Flare setting in point light.
  • I’m not using VR, is just a simple camera.
  • Tried using physical camera and normal camera.
  • Tried to enable and disable post processes from URP
  • Tried to enable and disable “Use Fog” in Flare asset.

I’m starting to think that flares simply doesn’t work in URP.

2

Lens flares aren’t supported in Universal Render Pipeline.

In the Features Comparison Page , you can see that both “Lens Flare” and “Flare Layer” are marked as “Not Supported”

Description of “Not Supported” is as follows.

If a feature is marked as Not supported, it’s because Unity is not planning to support it in any release.

8

Solved! It’s the Occlusion Remap in the Lens Flare settings, it’s glitched and doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do. You need to set it at 1 in order for your lens flare to work properly.

EDIT: Now the occlusion doesn’t work. With this I understood that it acts as if there was an object occluding the lens flare at the center of the camera.

7

Enable Post Processing on your Camera and URP Renderer guys.

3

Lens Flare aren’t not supported in HDRP also :frowning:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.render-pipelines.high-definition@7.1/manual/Feature-Comparison.html

4

If you enable YourRenderPipelineAsset > Quality > HDR it’ll work.

6

@noahrt

select camera - (from menu ) component - rendering - flare layer

9

Here is a quick and dirty occlusion script for anyone having issues with the built-in occluder. You put it on the same gameobject that you have the LensFlareComponentSRP on.

using UnityEngine;
using UnityEngine.Rendering;

[RequireComponent(typeof(LensFlareComponentSRP))]
public class LensFlareOcclusion : MonoBehaviour
{
    public bool useOcclusion = false;

    [Header("Occlusion Settings")]
    [Range(0f, 5f)] public float occlusionSpeed = 1f; // Speed of intensity change when occluded or revealed
    public float occlusionDistance = 1000f;
    public LayerMask occlusionLayerMask;

    private float occludedIntensity = 0f; // Intensity when occluded
    private float targetIntensity; // Target intensity that we want to reach
    private float originalIntensity; // To restore the original intensity

    private LensFlareComponentSRP lensFlare;

    private void Start()
    {
        lensFlare = GetComponent<LensFlareComponentSRP>();
        originalIntensity = lensFlare.intensity;
        targetIntensity = originalIntensity;
    }

    private void Update()
    {
        if (useOcclusion)
        {
            Vector3 origin = Camera.main.transform.position;
            Vector3 direction = transform.forward;
            Vector3 targetPosition = origin - direction * occlusionDistance;

            RaycastHit hit;
            bool isOccluded = Physics.Linecast(origin, targetPosition, out hit, occlusionLayerMask);

            targetIntensity = isOccluded ? occludedIntensity : originalIntensity;
        }
        else
        {
            targetIntensity = originalIntensity;
        }

        // Lerp the intensity
        lensFlare.intensity = Mathf.Lerp(lensFlare.intensity, targetIntensity, Time.deltaTime * occlusionSpeed);
    }
}