Rendering paths in Unity

A rendering path is the series of operations that draws and lights GameObjects the camera sees. Different rendering paths have different capabilities and performance characteristics.

There are two main types of rendering path in Unity:

• Forward
• Deferred

Forward

The Forward rendering path is the default rendering path in Unity projects. It works in the following way:

• Unity lights each GameObject in turn.
• Lighting has limits, for example how often or how well Unity can light each GameObject. These limits are different for each render pipeline.

The Universal Render Pipeline (URP) also has a Forward+ rendering path, which is similar to the Forward rendering path but has no limit on lights per GameObject.

Note: The Built-In Render Pipeline also has a Legacy Vertex Lit rendering path, which is a subset of the Forward rendering path.

Deferred

The Deferred rendering path works in the following way:

• Unity first creates a geometry buffer (G-buffer), which is a set of textures that stores data about the geometry and materials the camera sees.
• Unity uses the data from the G-buffer to light all the GameObjects at once.
• There are fewer limits on lighting, so GameObjects and shadows are more detailed. For example, normal maps and cookies work with all lights.

Deferred rendering paths can’t render transparent objects, so at the end of the rendering path Unity uses a forward render pass to render transparent objects.

Choose a rendering path

Each rendering path has advantages and disadvantages. For more information, refer to the following:

• Introduction to rendering paths in URP
• Introduction to rendering paths in the Built-In Render Pipeline

Additional resources

• Understanding rendering paths on the Unity Learn site
• Per-pixel and per-vertex lights