Projectors in 5.4.0p1 are broken

I just spent a few hours tracking down an odd rendering issue after upgrading from 5.3.3p3 to 5.4.0p1 and unfortunately this looks like a show-stopping bug (and we’ll have to downgrade back to 5.3): A projector will render all of its affected objects 2x if there are any alpha blended materials visible on screen. You can see this easily in the frame debugger (does not happen on 5.3.3p3). I’ve submitted a bug report.

If anyone wants to see this I’ve attached two projects (they are identical with the exception that one is meant for 5.4.0p1 and the other is for 5.3.3p3). You’ll see very different (and correct) behavior in 5.3.3p3.

2755969–198850–ProjectorBugs_533p3.zip (112 KB)
2755969–198851–ProjectorBugs_540p1.zip (113 KB)

Hey, what’s the case number for the bug report you submitted?

Hi Shawn,

Case 824041

Just got a reply from Unity QA saying that this issue is a dupe of another issue, that has been open for a year?

First a couple questions: my bug doesn’t happen in 5.3.3p3, it only happens in 5.4 - but the bug linked above is from 5.2?
Why is that bug not marked as a regression? Clearly it’s a regression in behavior?

Why hasn’t it been fixed in a year?

Yeah, I noticed this too and asked QA to double check. It’s possible that this was actually fixed and then regressed again. Or only fixed in a 5.3 patch release and didn’t make it to 5.4 properly.

Many bugs haven’t been fixed in even longer. Bugs get prioritized based on many factors, one of the biggest is how many people it affects. Unfortunately, projectors are not heavily used anymore in Unity, so that lowers the prioritization of this bug. With that said, after we figure out what’s going on with the discrepancy regrading 5.3.3p3, I’ll poke the graphics team again to re-evaluate this bug.

Thanks Shawn I do hope it gets fixed in a patch - we can’t move to the latest version without this feature and there’s really no solution without it.

As a customer though, I am concerned. I’m paying monthly for software that I can’t use. Obviously there is no guarantee that a feature won’t get broken – BUT as a customer I am in a very difficult situation when there is no guarantee that you guys will fix existing functionality that was broken in new builds. That makes upgrading to new versions an incredibly risky thing to do.

Frankly I’m terrified that there are “lots of bugs like this” that are regressions in functionality that just sit there ignored for a year or even longer.

Does premium support give us a way to escalate issues?

Your concern is understandable. The majority of long standing bugs are bugs that have existed since the introduction of whatever feature they are in and have relative low impact. We automatically escalate bugs that are regressions. If your bug proves to be a regression as suspected (I’m still waiting to hear back about it), it’s much more likely to get fixed.

Don’t suppose anyone’s figured out a workaround for this? - I’ve just run into it on 5.4.0f3

If you can go back to 5.3.6p2 it works there. It’s broken in Unity 5.4, and IMO their QA mis-categorized the issue as one that occurs all the way back in 5.2 (that is not marked as a regression, despite it clearly being one).

@shawn_1 did you ever get a response about this issue?

The bug was reactivated. See: Unity Issue Tracker - Projector gets drawn two times when transparent object is in the scene

It’s currently sitting with the graphics team to be fixed. I’ll give them a poke and point them to this thread.

I’ve also come across this bug, see this thread (with sample unity scene):

(edit : seems to be fixed in 5.4.2)