G-buffer layout in the Deferred rendering path in URP
The following illustration shows the data structure for each 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 of the render targets that Unity uses in the G-buffer in 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.
Albedo (sRGB)
This field contains the albedo color in 24-bit sRGB format.
MaterialFlags
This field is a bit field that contains material flags:
- Bit 0, ReceiveShadowsOff: if set, the pixel does not receive dynamic shadows.
- Bit 1, SpecularHighlightsOff: if set, the pixel does not receive specular highlights.
- Bit 2, SubtractiveMixedLighting: if set, the pixel uses the Subtractive Lighting Mode.
- Bit 3, SpecularSetup: if set, the material uses the specular workflow.
Bits 4 to 7 are reserved for future use.
Specular
This field contains the following 24-bit values:
- Simple Lit material: RGB specular colorThe color of a specular highlight.
See in Glossary stored in 24 bits. - Lit material with metallic workflow: Reflectivity stored in 8 bits. The other 16 bits aren’t used.
- Lit material with specular workflow: RGB specular color stored in 24 bits.
Occlusion
This field contains the baked occlusion value from baked lighting. For realtime lighting, Unity calculates the ambient occlusionA method to approximate how much ambient light (light not coming from a specific direction) can hit a point on a surface.
See in Glossary value by combining the baked occlusion value with the screen space ambient occlusion (SSAO) value.
Normal
This field contains the world space normals encoded in 24 bits. For more information, refer to Enable accurate G-buffer normals in the Deferred rendering path.
Smoothness
This field stores the smoothness value for the Simple Lit and Lit materials.
Emissive/GI/Lighting
This render target contains the material emissive output and baked lighting. Unity fills this field during the G-buffer render pass. During the deferred shadingA rendering path in the Built-in Render Pipeline that places no limit on the number of Lights that can affect a GameObject. All Lights are evaluated per-pixel, which means that they all interact correctly with normal maps and so on. Additionally, all Lights can have cookies and shadows. More info
See in Glossary pass, Unity stores lighting results in this render target.
The default format is B10G11R11_UFloatPack32.
Unity uses R16G6B16A16_SFloat if either of the following is true:
- In the URP Asset, Quality Settings > HDR is enabled but the build platform doesn’t support HDR.
- In the Player settings window, PreserveFramebufferAlpha is enabled.
If Unity can’t use B10G11R11_UFloatPack32 or R16G6B16A16_SFloat, it uses the default HDR format.
ShadowMask
Unity adds this render target to the G-buffer layout when you set the Lighting Mode to Subtractive or ShadowmaskA Texture that shares the same UV layout and resolution with its corresponding lightmap. More info
See in Glossary.
Rendering Layer Mask
Unity adds this render target to the G-buffer layout when you enable Rendering Layers.
Depth as Color
Unity adds this render target to the G-buffer layout when you enable Native Render Passes, and the platform supports them. Unity renders depth as a color into this render target. This render target has the following purpose:
- Improves performance on Vulkan devices.
- Lets Unity get the depth bufferA memory store that holds the z-value depth of each pixel in an image, where the z-value is the depth for each rendered pixel from the projection plane. More info
See in Glossary on platforms that use the Metal graphics API, which doesn’t allow fetching the depth from the DepthStencil buffer within the same render pass.
The format of this render target is GraphicsFormat.R32_SFloat.
DepthStencil
Unity reserves the four highest bits of this render target for the material type. For more information, refer to URP ShaderLab Pass tags.
The format of this render target is D32F_S8 or D24S8, depending on the platform.