Unity 6 – Distortion doesn't work in builds (but works in the Editor)

Unity Engine
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I’m migrating an existing project to Unity 6 Preview. Everything went fine except for distortion in Shader Graph shaders – they only work in the Editor, but not in builds. Shaders that use distortion in addition to normal transparency are rendered with zero distortion, and distortion-only shaders are rendered as solid pink.

I’ve double-checked all settings, and distortion is enabled everywhere:

  • Shader Graph > Graph Settings > Distortion = On.
  • Project Settings > Frame Settings (Default Values) > Camera > Rendering > Distortion = On.
  • Project Settings > Quality > HDRP > Material > Distortion = On (for all quality levels).

I’ve checked my camera’s frame settings, and Distortion is set to On there as well. The shader is added to ‘Always Include’ in Project Settings > Graphics, to make sure it doesn’t get stripped from the build. HDRP is updated to 17.0.3 (August 06, 2024). I also tried to override the frame settings in the camera and forced Distortion to On (despite the fact that it was already on by default), but it didn’t help. Clean builds didn’t help as well.

I thought that there was some problem with my existing project and created a bare-bones 3D HDRP project from scratch. Same deal – distortion still works only in Editor, and doesn’t work in builds. All the steps and checks above didn’t help. Overall, it looks like Unity 6 doesn’t include Distortion pass in builds.

Does anyone have any idea how to make distortion work? Should I submit a bug?

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  1. Check if the same quality tier is used in builds (should be green AND checked!)
  2. If you have a repro project, yes file a bug report
1 Like
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Thank you for the reply! Re: 1 – I simply deleted all quality levels except for one, which is both green and checked, but it didn’t help: the problem is still there. Could you suggest any other places where I might check for problems, before submitting a bug report?

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The Unity Discord sometimes has some faster reply!

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Update: I’ve submitted a bug and Unity confirmed it. If anyone else is having the same problem, please comment and vote for the issue here: Unity Issue Tracker - Material is not rendered in Player when using a Shader with Distortion enabled