Forward rendering path in the Built-In Render Pipeline

The Forward rendering path renders each GameObject in one or more render passes, depending on the lights that affect the object.

Lights themselves are also treated differently by the Forward rendering path, depending on their settings and intensity. For more information, refer to Per-pixel and per-vertex lights.

Render passes

For each GameObject, Unity first renders the Base Pass, which renders the following:

• One per-pixel light that affects the GameObject.
• All the per-vertex and spherical harmonics (SH) lights that affect the GameObject.
• Lightmap data for the GameObject
• Ambient lighting
• Emissive lighting
• Shadows from directional lights

Note: Lightmapped objects don’t receive lighting from SH lights.

Unity then renders one Additional Pass for each per-pixel light that affects the GameObject. Unity doesn’t render shadows for these lights.

Additional resources

• Introduction to rendering paths
• Per-pixel and per-vertex lights