Explore the properties and settings you can use to customize the default Lit shaderA program that runs on the GPU. 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).
Note: URP implements certain Lit shader material features as shader variants, which require more SRP Batcher batches. For optimal performance, disable unused features.
The Surface Options section controls how URP renders the material on-screen.
| Property | Sub-property | Description |
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| Workflow Mode | Selects whether Unity calculates reflections using a metallic value or a specular color. The options are:
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| Surface Type | Sets whether the surface is opaque or transparent. The options are the following:
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| Blending Mode | Sets how the shader blends the color of a transparent material with the background. This property is available only when you set Surface Type to Transparent. The options are:
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| Preserve Specular Lighting | Keeps specular highlights on transparent surfaces by not applying the alpha value. The specular highlights appear even if the material is fully transparent. This property is available only if you set Surface Type to Transparent and Blending Mode to either Alpha or Additive. | |
| Render Face | Specifies which faces of the mesh the shader renders. The options are:
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| Alpha Clipping | Discards pixelsThe 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 if their alpha value is lower than the Threshold value. The default value is 0.5. Use this property to create hard edges between opaque and transparent areas, for example to create blades of grass. This property affects batching performance. |
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| Threshold | Sets the minimum alpha value for a pixel to be visible. The default value is 0.5. This property is only available if you enable Alpha Clipping. | |
| Receive Shadows | Determines whether the material receives and displays shadows cast from other objects. This property affects batching performance. |
The Surface Inputs describe the surface itself. For example, use these properties to make your surface look wet, dry, rough, or smooth.
Note: You can use a single RGBA texture for the metallic, smoothness, and occlusion properties. For more information, refer to Assign a channel-packed texture to a material.
| Property | Sub-property | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Base Map | Sets the surface color, also known as diffuse. To assign a texture, select the picker (⊙). To assign a color, either as the main color or a tint on top of the texture, select the swatch or the dropper. If you set Surface Type to Transparent or enable Alpha Clipping, Unity uses the alpha channel to calculate the transparency of the surface. |
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| Metallic Map | Sets how metallic the surface is. This property is available only if you set Workflow Mode to Metallic. To assign a texture, select the picker (⊙). To adjust the surface reflectivity, use the slider. The range is 0 to 1, where 0 is a non-metallic surface like plastic or wood, and 1 is a metallic surface like silver. | |
| Specular Map | Sets the color of reflections. This property is available only if you set Workflow Mode to Specular. To assign a texture, select the picker (⊙). To assign a color, select the swatch or the dropper. | |
| Smoothness | Sets the smoothness of the surface, which affects the clarity of reflections. The range is 0 to 1, where 0 provides a wide, rough highlight, and 1 provides a small, sharp highlight like glass. For more information, refer to Configure reflections in prebuilt shaders. | |
| Source | Selects a source to use as a smoothness map. The options are the following:
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| Normal MapA type of Bump Map texture that allows you to add surface detail such as bumps, grooves, and scratches to a model which catch the light as if they are represented by real geometry. See in Glossary |
Adds details like bumps, scratches, and grooves. To assign a normal map, select the picker (⊙). Use the slider to adjust the intensity of the effect. The range is 0 to 1, where lower values create less visible details. For more information, refer to Introduction to normal maps (bump mapping). This property affects batching performance. | |
| Height Map | Adds the appearance of large bumps and protrusions. To assign a height map, select the picker (⊙). Use the slider to adjust the intensity of the effect. The range is 0 to 1, where lower values create a less visible effect. For more information, refer to Height maps. This property affects batching performance. | |
| Occlusion Map | Simulates shadows in corners and crevices to make lighting look more realistic. To assign an occlusion map, select the picker (⊙). Use the slider to adjust the intensity of the effect. For more information, refer to Occlusion maps. This property affects batching performance. | |
| Emission | Enables the surface emitting a color as a light source. This property affects batching performance. | |
| Emission Map | Sets the color the material emits as a light source. The default is black, which means no emission. To assign a texture, select the picker (⊙). To assign a color, either as the main color or a tint on top of the texture, select the swatch or the dropper. For effects like lava that glow brighter than white while still being another color, increase the Intensity value in the color picker. This property affects batching performance. | |
| Global Illumination | Sets whether Unity bakes the emissive light cast onto other GameObjects, or calculates it in real-time. The options are:
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| Tiling | Scales the surface input textures along their UV axes. The default value is 1, which means no scaling. Set a higher value to make the textures repeat across your meshThe main graphics primitive of Unity. Meshes make up a large part of your 3D worlds. Unity supports triangulated or Quadrangulated polygon meshes. Nurbs, Nurms, Subdiv surfaces must be converted to polygons. More info See in Glossary. Set a lower value to stretch the textures. |
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| Offset | Positions the surface input textures on the mesh. |
The Detail Inputs section adds extra details to the surface. For more information, refer to Secondary Maps (Detail Maps) and Detail Mask.
Note: These properties require a GPU that supports shader model 2.5 or higher. For more information about shader models, refer to Set a shader to require a shader model or GPU feature.
| Property | Description |
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| Mask | Defines the areas where Unity overlays the detail map textures over the surface input textures. To assign a mask texture, select the picker (⊙). Unity uses the alpha channel of the texture as the mask. The Tiling and Offset properties have no effect on Mask. |
| Base Map | Overlays a second more detailed color texture over the Base Map in the Surface Inputs section. To assign a detail texture, select the picker (⊙). Use the slider to adjust the visibility of the texture. |
| Normal Map | Overlays a second more detailed normal map over the Normal Map in the Surface Inputs section. To assign a normal map, select the picker (⊙). Use the slider to adjust the intensity of the effect. |
| Tiling | Scales the detail map textures along their UV axes. The default value is 1, which means no scaling. Set a higher value to make the textures repeat across your mesh. Set a lower value to stretch the textures. |
| Offset | Positions the detail map textures on the mesh. |
The Advanced Options section controls the rendering calculations Unity uses.
| Property | Description |
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| Specular Highlights | Adds specular highlights from direct lighting, for example Directional, Point, and Spot lights. This means that your material reflects the shine from these light sources. Disable this property to make shaders render faster. This property affects batching performance. |
| Environment Reflections | Samples reflections using the nearest Reflection ProbeA rendering component that captures a spherical view of its surroundings in all directions, rather like a camera. The captured image is then stored as a Cubemap that can be used by objects with reflective materials. More info See in Glossary, or the Light ProbeLight probes store information about how light passes through space in your scene. A collection of light probes arranged within a given space can improve lighting on moving objects and static LOD scenery within that space. More info See in Glossary set in the Lighting window. Disable this property to make shaders render faster, but remove reflections. This property affects batching performance. |
| Sorting Priority | Determines when Unity renders the material. Unity renders materials with lower values first. Use this property to prevent Unity from rendering pixels twice by rendering materials behind other materials. This property works similarly to the render queue in the Built-In Render Pipeline. |
| Enable GPU Instancing | Renders meshes with the same geometry and material in a single batch when possible. This makes rendering faster. URP can’t render meshes in one batch if they have different materials or if the hardware doesn’t support GPU instancing. For more information, refer to GPU instancing. |
| Alembic Motion Vectors | Enables motion vector support for meshes streamed through Alembic files. For more information, refer to Built-in shader support for motion vectors. |
| XRAn umbrella term encompassing Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) applications. Devices supporting these forms of interactive applications can be referred to as XR devices. More info See in Glossary Motion Vectors Pass (Space Warp) |
Enables URP running a motion vector render pass in XR to improve performance. This property is only available if your project meets the prerequisites for URP Application Spacewarp. |