Dive into the URP 3D Sample

Many studios have used Unity and the Universal Render Pipeline (URP) to build games of various genres and visual styles, running on many different platforms. Yet it’s sometimes hard for beginners and even experienced users to get started with a reference setup.

We released the HDRP 3D Sample in 2021 to help you get started on high-fidelity rendering, and last November we announced the launch of our URP 3D Sample during the Unite 2023 Keynote.

This robust sample features four environments with different art styles, rendering paths, and scene complexity to help you learn how to create and scale rich graphics across many platforms. From low- to high-end mobile, PC to console, and VR, we wanted to make a visually engaging experience so you can better learn and use URP. The sample is designed to help you build, optimize, and scale your next game efficiently against your target hardware.

You can also discover how to use the latest features available with URP, such as Forward+ rendering, Decals, Lens Flares, Physically Based Rendering (PBR) materials, Shader Graph, Volumes, and Post-processing.

The sample requires Unity 2022 LTS and will deliver added support in the next release, Unity 6, also announced at Unite. Unity 6 will also include powerful new URP features including Render Graph, GPU Resident Drawer, and an innovative cross-platform temporal upscaler called Spatial Temporal Post-processing (STP).

You can download the sample in the Unity Hub, and we can’t wait to see what you create. In the meantime, let’s take a look at what each scene delivers.

The Terminal scene takes place in an architectural sci-fi building that features PBR materials and realistic lighting. The Terminal allows you to teleport into the other three scenes, each built to showcase the capabilities of URP with different art styles: a garden, a spaceship’s cockpit, and an oasis.

With its neutral setting and lighting, The Terminal is the ideal scene for you to drop in assets for look development. The scene showcases various custom shaders made with Shader Graph (water, teleportation signs) as well as advanced effects like the teleportation allowing transition between two scenes. To learn more, watch our GDC 2023 talk.

Follow the ramp to access the three scenes by focusing on the Unity logo above the teleporting device for a few seconds (requires Play mode).

This stylized nocturnal garden, inspired by the Japanese shoin-zukuri, features beautiful vegetation crafted with SpeedTree, interconnected interiors, a meandering stream, and numerous decorative lights that take advantage of the new Forward+ Render path, which surpasses previous lightcount limits.

This environment is a great showcase of URP’s range because it’s optimized to scale for low-end mobile devices through to higher-end platforms. You can learn, for example, how we optimized the shaders using custom function nodes in Shader Graph, custom translucency for vegetation, as well as optimizing lighting or simulating shadows using light cookies.

The Oasis is a photorealistic environment showcasing advanced shaders tailored for higher-end, compute-capable platforms. It features Decals, Lens Flares, PBR materials, and more complex custom Shader Graph shaders for sand, water, fog, and vegetation. It shows you that URP can reach a higher level of visual quality for platforms with more performant GPUs.

This rollercoaster ride puts you in the seat of a spaceship, where you will witness an epic battle between two factions. The heavily stylized environment uses a custom lighting model in Shader Graph, and it’s particularly well suited to the high-performance requirements of VR headsets such as the Meta Quest 2.

• Install Unity 2022.3.12f1 via the Unity Hub
• Create a new Project, and select “3D Sample Scenes (URP)”
• Click the “Download template” button on the right panel, and click “Create project”
• The project will load in the Editor (the first import may take a few minutes)

Are you new to Unity?

A Unity subscription lets you unlock the full potential of URP and deploy across multiple devices such as game consoles. Learn more about our plans to see which is right for you and see how creators, like Two Point Campus, are using URP today.

Join the conversation in the URP 3D Sample forum channel and stay up to date on bug fixes, additions, and major changes. We invite you to share your general sentiment, ask questions and request help directly in this thread. We also encourage you to experiment with the content of this project and share your findings.

Session | Accelerate your multiplatform development with the latest for URP

Discover the latest enhancements for URP in this Unite 2023 session, including the new Render Graph, additional lighting capabilities with GPU Lightmapper and APV (Adaptive Probe Volumes), and improvements to VFX Graph.

Livestream | What’s new in Unity’s Universal Render Pipeline

Join technical artists and product managers for a live discussion as they go over Unity’s URP 3D Sample scenes, looking at the latest graphics features, device support, and more. This includes a live coding session to create a custom fog and custom renderer features.

Session | Cross-platform game development with the new URP sample scene

Watch this talk from GDC 2023 to get a deeper understanding of the URP samples’ teleportation effect, lighting in VR in the Garden and Cockpit scenes, and performance optimizations.

Blog | How to make nature shaders with Shader Graph in 2022 LTS

Explore how to create two distinct nature shaders using Universal Render Pipeline (URP) in 2022 LTS. We also take a closer look at a stylized water shader and a semi-realistic sand shade, released with the new URP 3D Sample.