Version: 2022.1
Using skyboxes
6 Sided skybox

Skybox shaders

Unity provides multiple SkyboxA special type of Material used to represent skies. Usually six-sided. More info
See in Glossary
Shaders for you to use. Each ShaderA program that runs on the GPU. More info
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uses a different set of properties and generation techniques. Each Shader falls into one of the following two categories:

Textured: Generates a skybox from one or multiple textures. The source textures represent the view of the background from all directions. The Skybox Shaders in this category are:

  • 6 Sided.
  • CubemapA collection of six square textures that can represent the reflections in an environment or the skybox drawn behind your geometry. The six squares form the faces of an imaginary cube that surrounds an object; each face represents the view along the directions of the world axes (up, down, left, right, forward and back). More info
    See in Glossary
    .
  • Panoramic.

Procedural: Does not use textures and instead uses properties on the Material to generate a skybox. The Skybox Shader in this category is:

Render pipeline compatibility

Feature Built-in Render PipelineA series of operations that take the contents of a Scene, and displays them on a screen. Unity lets you choose from pre-built render pipelines, or write your own. More info
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Universal Render Pipeline (URP) High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP)
Skybox shaders Yes (1) Yes (1) No (2)

Notes:

  1. The Built-in Render Pipeline, and the Universal Render Pipeline (URP) both exclusively use skyboxes to render a sky. They both support all of the above Shaders.
  2. The High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP) does not support any of the above Shaders and instead includes multiple sky generation solutions.
Using skyboxes
6 Sided skybox