Enable dynamic branching in shaders in URP

To reduce the number of shader variants in the Universal Render Pipeline (URP), enable Unity using dynamic branching in shaders instead of keywords and shader variants.

For more information about keywords, refer to Changing how shaders work using keywords

Note: If you target an older mobile device, dynamic branching can cause performance issues. Test on your target device.

Follow these steps:

1. From the main menu, go to Edit > Project Settings.
2. Select the Graphics tab.
3. In the Shader Build Settings section, select the Add (+) button.
4. Input the keyword set, including the single underscore (_) or multiple underscores (__) if they’re part of the set. For example _ FOG_LINEAR FOG_EXP FOG_EXP2.
5. Set Type Override to dynamic_branch.
6. Select Apply. Unity recompiles the shaders.

Compatible keyword sets in prebuilt shaders

If you use prebuilt shaders in URP, you can only enable dynamic branching for the keyword sets in the following table.

Other keyword sets in prebuilt shaders aren’t compatible with dynamic branching.

Check compatibility of custom shaders

To enable dynamic branching for a keyword set in a custom shader, use HLSL if statements for branches, not preprocessor directives such as #if.

Additional resources

• Reduce shader variants
• How Unity compiles branching shaders