Introduction to the deferred rendering path
The Deferred rendering pathThe technique that a render pipeline uses to render graphics. Choosing a different rendering path affects how lighting and shading are calculated. Some rendering paths are more suited to different platforms and hardware than others. More info
See in Glossary in the Universal 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
See in Glossary (URP) first creates a G-buffer, which is a set of textures that stores information about the sceneA Scene contains the environments and menus of your game. Think of each unique Scene file as a unique level. In each Scene, you place your environments, obstacles, and decorations, essentially designing and building your game in pieces. More info
See in Glossary, then uses the information to light all the GameObjectsThe fundamental object in Unity scenes, which can represent characters, props, scenery, cameras, waypoints, and more. A GameObject’s functionality is defined by the Components attached to it. More info
See in Glossary at once.
Terrain blending accuracy
In Deferred+, the terrainThe landscape in your scene. A Terrain GameObject adds a large flat plane to your scene and you can use the Terrain’s Inspector window to create a detailed landscape. More info
See in Glossary might look different because of the way Unity combines terrain layers.
- In the Forward renderingA rendering path that renders each object in one or more passes, depending on lights that affect the object. Lights themselves are also treated differently by Forward Rendering, depending on their settings and intensity. More info
See in Glossary path, Unity uses multi-pass rendering to calculate lighting for four layers at a time, and alpha-blends after each set of four layers. - In the Deferred rendering path, Unity combines terrain layers in the G-buffer pass using hardware blending, four layers at a time, then calculates lighting only once during the Deferred rendering pass.
The approach in the Deferred rendering path limits how correct the combination of property values is. For example, pixelThe smallest unit in a computer image. Pixel size depends on your screen resolution. Pixel lighting is calculated at every screen pixel. More info
See in Glossary normals cannot be correctly combined using the alpha blend equation alone, because one terrain layer might contain coarse terrain detail while another layer might contain fine detail. Averaging or summing normals results in a loss of accuracy.
Default shader compatibility
Unity uses a forward render pass to render the following default shadersA program that runs on the GPU. More info
See in Glossary:
- Complex Lit: The lighting model is too complex to fit into the G-buffer.
- Baked Lit or Lit: There’s no realtime lighting, so Unity renders the data into the Emissive/GI/Lighting field of the G-buffer. This is quicker than using a deferred render pass.