Can somebody explain to me how can I control the rendering layer of sprites and UI elements? I want the sprites to be rendered under the ui elements but no matter what i do, they keep rendering on top of them.
Three (3) primary ways that Unity draws / stacks / sorts / layers / overlays stuff:
In short, as far as the Standard Rendering Pipeline,
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The default 3D Renderers draw stuff according to Z depth - distance from camera.
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SpriteRenderers draw according to their Sorting Layer and Sorting Depth properties
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UI Canvas Renderers draw in linear transform sequence, like a stack of papers
If you find that you need to mix and match items using these different ways of rendering, and have them appear in ways they are not initially designed for, you need to:
- identify what you are using
- search online for the combination of things you are doing and how to to achieve what you want.
There may be more than one solution to try.
For instance, you may even use multiple co-located cameras to more-explicitly control apparent draw ordering.
Additional reading in the official docs:
And SortingGroups can also be extremely helpful in certain circumstances:
Other rendering pipelines may have other ways of layering (HDRP and URP). Go see the latest docs for details.
There’s lots of third party open source packages available as well, such as this: