Hi everyone,
Here is an update on our plan of intent regarding unified rendering.
We received lots of feedback and concerns from studios and the community who are satisfied with what we offer and who need to rely on it for multiple years. Consequently, we plan to support and additively improve both URP and HDRP for a longer period of time.
Feedback also shows that HDRP and URP cover different but both important usage especially with the future evolution of the device ecosystem on each market segment:
- The need for a generalist, highly customizable 3D/2D renderer, focused on wide range device support, for users who want to maximize the control and alignment of their visual style, visual fidelity and performance.
- The need for an opinionated 3D renderer with energy conservation and temporal accumulation at its heart, focused on devices with good compute support, and providing a set of advanced off-the-shelf features allowing even small teams to target physical based rendering, stylized or realistic, without requiring deep engine customization.
URP and HDRP already generally cover these segments, but there are gaps limiting the adoption of each one that we want to iteratively close.
Additionally, down the line, we believe that our renderers offering should share a common setup, authoring, extensibility and execution framework.
We also received lots of positive feedback about a unified approach. A single SRP is still the North Star, but we want to get there iteratively, incrementally building up on URP and HDRP, and not force studios and users, but validate along the way. We won’t URP nor HDRP until most users massively use and are satisfied with any better solution.
To conclude, we are adjusting our graphics plan to:
- Not deprecate SRPs with a unified solution in the short or mid term
- Instead, invest in bringing the SRPs closer in an iterative way, with the goal of reducing both internal and external maintenance cost, bringing additive value to existing render pipelines, making URP and HDRP more complementary and more unified, to converge towards a longer term unified offering.
- Still plan to hide/remove the Built-in render pipeline after Unity 6 to reduce fragmentation and maintenance costs, and unleash SRPs potential for everyone, but closely monitor usage and work with studios and the community before taking a final decision.
Thanks for all your feedback, and we hope this adjustment of our plan better suits your needs.