I have an existing project I’d like to try to take advantage of the new HD Scriptable Rendering pipeline with the Unity 2018 release. I was wondering what steps I could take (I’m using Unity 2018.2.8f1 currently) in order to try to make use of this new system?
I’ve read in other threads, it’s not as easy as clicking a button and having it all automatically update. I have to use certain shaders (LIT shaders), and certain lighting capabilities, and settings on the game camera etc… One Unity rep in a thread said there was a button to automatically update shaders to use the HD shaders, however that option is not available in the current Unity version…so that is a dead end it seems.
Is it possible to “upgrade” an existing project to make use of it. If yes, how do you do it? And are there any real tutorials or articles I could perhaps make reference of to do so?
I just read other users had to download or import a package to make use of it, but that was several months old. Do I need to download an HD package from somewhere?
Sometime during 2019 last I heard from Seb
HDRP is not ideal for mainstream production and it’s not released yet. Some would call it an early-beta, to be fair… as it will have a lot of technical issues that can crop up.
You can transition any time but it won’t end well if you aren’t medium-high experienced in Unity, and you don’t mind the fact things will change including API and visuals.
It also won’t be suitable for VR for a while and pretty much is only suitable for PS4/DX11 and maybe Xbox (I can’t confirm that).
No upgrade is possible if you do not use the default standard shader and it is by large an undocumented manual process.
I recommend starting a new project from the Unity Hub or template for HDRP with latest Unity then slowly copying your existing game into it. That will be much smoother than trying to set it up from scratch.
Half the (relevant to Builtin) Unity UI is not functional and never will be with HDRP. These are due to be hidden in the future to reduce confusion.
Reflection probes changed.
Lighting is different.
Managing shadows are your responsibility: do too much and they will disable. This is not really documented but it is fixable by tweaking the HDRP settings, again these will not be anywhere near as straightforward as LWRP or Builtin.
Overall, it sounds scary but becomes much less so if you take my advice to go with opening a template of HDRP on the latest 2018.3 beta (it matters because it will upgrade HDRP for you) and get used to the example scene, copy example scene, and slowly migrate your project into that.
Trying to upgrade your project to HDRP will end in a lot of confusion at this stage unless you are already experienced in HDRP because it’s an asset workflow that needs specific linking. Using the template and bring stuff into it will avoid those issues and quickly teach you how things fit together.
Ok thanks Hippo. Well at least it gives me something to work off of. It sounds like I might just have to finish my current project without it, and only make use of it in projects I start subsequent to it’s release. Thanks for the information.
It honestly can’t hurt to try, but it’s not a one click thing, you’ll have to fiddle about. And, I’m not sure it’ll result in a graphical upgrade for projects not made with it in mind to be honest.
Also you’d have to redo all of your PBR textures, sorry forgot that one!
