Hi everyone,
As part of the Unity 2021.1 beta release, the v11 Scriptable Render Pipeline (SRP) packages are available now. The team has put the majority of our effort for this release into improving the quality, stability and performance of SRPs. Read to learn about some important updates and features in this beta release.
SRP packages are part of the core
With the release of 2021.1, graphics packages are relocating to the core of Unity. This move simplifies the experience of working with new Unity graphics features, as well as ensuring that your projects are always running on the latest verified graphics code.
For each release of Unity (alpha / beta / patch release) the graphics code is embedded within the main Unity installer. When you install the latest release of Unity, you will also get the latest URP, HDRP, Shader Graph, VFX Graph, and more.
Tying graphics packages more closely to the main Unity release allows better testing to ensure that the graphics packages you use have been tested extensively with the version of Unity you have downloaded.
Power users, fret not – we have not taken away your ability to use a local copy or a custom version of the graphics packages. You can still override them in the manifest file, just as you always have.
URP Point Light Shadows
Point light shadows, one of the most requested features of URP, are now available. Point light shadows help you to create more realistic simulation of lamps, torches, campfires, and other local sources of light in a Scene.
Static shadow caster for HDRP
The static shadow caster lets you cache just a portion of non-directional shadow maps. With this setup, HDRP renders shadows for static shadow casters into the shadow map based on the light’s update mode, but it renders dynamic shadow casters into their respective shadow maps for each frame. This can result in significant performance improvements for projects with lights that don’t move or that move infrequently but still need to cast dynamic shadows.
URP 2D Renderer Improvements
2D Renderer now supports the material property BaseMap used in URP, making SpriteRenderer, TilemapRenderer and SpriteRenderer directly set the diffuse texture from shaders made in URP or with Shader Graph.
Camera Sorting Layers Texture can now be accessed and manipulated in shaders. Applications for this include creating water or heat haze effects similar to the Opaque Texture in URP.
Release changelog details
If you are interested in the granular details of what has been fixed or changed, you can always refer to the latest changelogs:
URP Changelogs
HDRP What’s New, Changelogs
Shader Graph Changelogs
VFX Graph Changelogs
Getting started with Unity 2021.1 beta
A friendly reminder that before you take the beta for a spin, we encourage you to back up your project. This advice always applies when you are working with our beta and Pre-Release packages. Remember, the beta is not intended to be used for production – it’s for you to evaluate new features so that we can integrate your feedback. For projects in production, we recommend that you use verified packages and our most recent full release, Unity 2020.2.
For information on what we are working on for next releases, you can always visit our Graphics Product Board. You can use the public board to vote for features and your priorities, as well as submit new ideas or feature requests.
As always, we value your feedback and would be happy to hear from you. Please use this thread if you have any comments or questions about this release.
Cheers!
The Unity Graphics team
