It is possible to create Render Textures where each pixel contains a high-precision Depth value. This is mostly used when some effects need the Scene’s Depth to be available (for example, soft particles, screen space ambient occlusion and translucency would all need the Scene’s Depth). Image Effects often use Depth Textures too.
Pixel values in the Depth Texture range between 0 and 1, with a non-linear distribution. Precision is usually 32 or 16 bits, depending on configuration and platform used. When reading from the Depth Texture, a high precision value in a range between 0 and 1 is returned. If you need to get distance from the Camera, or an otherwise linear 0–1 value, compute that manually using helper macros (see below).
Depth Textures are supported on most modern hardware and graphics APIs. Special requirements are listed below:
Most of the time, Depth Texture are used to render Depth from the Camera. The UnityCG.cginc include file contains some macros to deal with the above complexity in this case:
Note: On DX11/12, PS4, XboxOne and Metal, the Z buffer range is 1–0 and UNITY_REVERSED_Z is defined. On other platforms, the range is 0–1.
For example, this shader would render depth of its GameObjects:
Shader "Render Depth" {
SubShader {
Tags { "RenderType"="Opaque" }
Pass {
CGPROGRAM
#pragma vertex vert
#pragma fragment frag
#include "UnityCG.cginc"
struct v2f {
float4 pos : SV_POSITION;
float2 depth : TEXCOORD0;
};
v2f vert (appdata_base v) {
v2f o;
o.pos = UnityObjectToClipPos(v.vertex);
UNITY_TRANSFER_DEPTH(o.depth);
return o;
}
half4 frag(v2f i) : SV_Target {
UNITY_OUTPUT_DEPTH(i.depth);
}
ENDCG
}
}
}
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