A pretty basic shader I have working in built in… I just can’t find a way to achieve the same thing in URP now… is it even possible…seriously disappointing if not, the closet I can get with URP is a cutout alpha, it is ugly 
…Built in… URP can’t do this…lame
Maybe someone at unity graphics team can explain why something that worked just fine in built in, no longer works in URP…
Well it’s a been a whole year… is URP still not going to support this built in feature?
im curious too, any update on this? dear unity devs
Last I checked, built-in did not support semi transparent shadows either. The built-in workaround is they would actually just dither based on the alpha, and do a clip() on the light’s shadow pass shader. Then if you had soft shadow sampling enabled, this would cover up the dither and it would look semi transparent.
Looking over the URP source code, it looks like they no longer do this dither method. You could probably override the shadow pass and add it in yourself, though.
All I know is that I can get working opacity and shadows in amplify’s better shader graph… while using Built in renderer.
Yet while using URP using amplify or unity not so good shader graph I can’t…
It’s good to hear from someone who has taken a look at the code to see what is going on… Why Unity dev’s can’t be bothered to say why this doesn’t work in URP or when it ever will I have no idea… would be good if they fixed it.
If I knew how to do that I would, I’m really not into things that technically… why else would be using shader graphs.
Why not ask Amplify? They’re an open crowd filled with smart people. I mention them since ASE still supports URP.
I did over a year ago… this post is what they found… screenshots
Thing is this visual is easily obtained in other ways. Have you tried asking how to do the same effect in the shader forum? It seems to me that you either log a bug, or you use a different shader / technique.
I mean if someone showed me how achieve that opacity effect like shown in the animation above ie via shader graph for URP… I’d be happy… I find it very odd that despite this post being up for a over year no one using URP does anything with opacity and hasn’t noticed this doesn’t work like it did with built in… aside from the odd couple of posts I’ve seen of similar reported issues and complete dead silence from Unity as to it being supported in future or not or will be fixed… or it does work and no one can be bothered to say it does ♂️
Half the reason I never bothered filing a bug is because… is it a bug? …
I lean more to it’s not supported and URP is some sort of low end mobile renderer and no one even bothers touching URP for this stuff…All of a bit of disappointing to me whatever the reasons.
Seems like you’ve decided what things are.
Seems like Unity has show us “what things are” Just look at their github and check updates to URP vs HDRP. It has been ages.
Point is, they want to turn a profit. They do this by buying tools like Weta Digital, and providing them as services. They also want people using these services to use HDRP, so they are 100% focused on that. They just aren’t honest about it.
In other words, Unity has chosen, since going public, to focus on Film and other media at the expense of games.
And they DON’T CARE!
These are the facts. So, while some may chose to lecture frustrated devs in the forum for problems that Unity has created for themselves, the truth is - this is on Unity (executives), and Unity alone.
Edit: To clarify, this isn’t directed at hippocoder (who is typically very helpful), or anyone else on this thread. Just generally from my experience in these forums.
Heh I get how you feel, I have felt this way a few times. I think a lot of the issues at Unity are becoming somewhat unblocked. It’s not that they wanted to annoy you, but couldn’t move fast. Structural changes in how source code is committed, staff moving around and plain waiting for feature A to land before B has all made it seem like it’s taken too long.
(It has taken too long) - but it is changing as far as I can see. Forward+ is a pretty wild improvement plus this lot: Rendering and visual effects roadmap | Unity
I know, I know. It’s a long time 
I feel ya. I’ve considered setting up a browser extension to append the unity stock price to every reply I make to a unity developer. Maybe it’ll get the point across that they’re not focusing on the right things, most of the time, nowadays.
What part of this feature table from Built In and URP… isn’t being covered by URP to support this feature which still remains broken in URP …it’s both a shadow and alpha transparency issue to me…
Would just be nice to have a clear answer as to what Unity will actually intend support in URP in the future as this doesn’t seem to be covered in the roadmap either… Rendering and visual effects roadmap | Unity
I’ve ported built-in style dithering to URP in past. Basically everything what @funkyCoty said applies, this was how they did semitransparent shadows on built-in.
Here’s how it looks like without soft shadow filtering:
You can’t do it on SG alone since you need to do customized shadow caster pass for it. You might be able to do this with ASE if you are willing to roll out your own template for this (or modify existing URP template they have). How I did it myself was that I just added the dithering function to URP’s own SG ShadowCasterPass.hlsl:
half dither(half2 uv, half alpha)
{
const half DITHER_THRESHOLDS[16] =
{
1.0 / 17.0, 9.0 / 17.0, 3.0 / 17.0, 11.0 / 17.0,
13.0 / 17.0, 5.0 / 17.0, 15.0 / 17.0, 7.0 / 17.0,
4.0 / 17.0, 12.0 / 17.0, 2.0 / 17.0, 10.0 / 17.0,
16.0 / 17.0, 8.0 / 17.0, 14.0 / 17.0, 6.0 / 17.0
};
uint index = (uint(uv.x) % 4) * 4 + uint(uv.y) % 4;
return alpha - DITHER_THRESHOLDS[index];
}
and in it’s frag function change the place with #if _ALPHATEST_ON to:
#if _ALPHATEST_ON
clip(surfaceDescription.Alpha - surfaceDescription.AlphaClipThreshold);
#endif
#if _DITHER_SHADOWS
clip(dither(unpacked.positionCS.xy, surfaceDescription.Alpha) + 0.001);
#endif
You then need to add Dither Shadows keyword boolean to your shader graph so you can toggle the feat on and off.
This is how it looks then in 2022.2’s URP with High shadow filtering enabled (High is using Tent 7x7, older URP’s Tent 5x5 still can leave the dithering effect visible at some alpha values):
Well thanks, it’s a bit of a hack and not sure how that would work with the current ASE shader I had… maybe @JasonBooth would implement in the BetterLit.
Just to note this did get an ‘official SRP Dev Blitz Day 2022 - Q&A’ response here: Shadows....
