Rendering Debugger

The Rendering Debugger is a specific window for the Scriptable Render Pipeline that contains debugging and visualization tools. You can use these tools to understand and solve any issues you might encounter. It contains graphics-related tools but you can extend it to include tools for any other field, such as animation. The Rendering Debugger separates debug items into the following sections:

• Decals
• Display Stats
• Material
• Lighting
• Volume
• Rendering
• Camera

The Rendering Debugger

Using the Rendering Debugger

The Rendering Debugger window is available in the following modes:

• The Editor.
• The Play mode.
• At runtime in the standalone Unity Player, on any device. The window is only available in Development Builds.

To open the Rendering Debugger in the Editor:

• Enable Runtime Debug Shaders in HDRP Global Settings (in the menu: Edit > Project Settings > Graphics > HDRP Settings).

• Select Window > Analysis > Rendering Debugger.

To open the window in the Play mode, or at runtime in a Development Build, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Backspace (Ctrl+Delete on macOS) or press L3 and R3 (Left Stick and Right Stick) on a controller.

You can display read-only items, such as the FPS counter, independently of the Rendering Debugger window. When you disable the Rendering Debugger window, they're still visible in the top right corner of the screen. Use this functionality to track particular values without cluttering the screen.

You can disable the runtime UI entirely by using the enableRuntimeUI property.

Navigation at runtime

To change the current active item:

• Keyboard: Use the arrow keys.
• Xbox controller: Use the Directional pad (D-Pad).
• PlayStation controller: Use the Directional buttons.

To change the current tab:

• Keyboard: Use the Page up and Page down keys (Fn + Up and Fn + Down keys respectively for MacOS).
• Xbox controller: Use the Left Bumper and Right Bumper.
• PlayStation controller: Use the L1 button and R1 button.

To display the current active item independently of the debug window:

• Keyboard: Press the right Shift key.
• Xbox controller: Press the X button.
• PlayStation controller: Press the Square button.

Decals panel

The Decals panel has tools that you can use to debug decals affecting transparent objects in your project.

Debug Option	Description
Display Atlas	Enable the checkbox to display the decal atlas for a Camera in the top left of that Camera's view.
Mip Level	Use the slider to select the mip level for the decal atlas. The higher the mip level, the blurrier the decal atlas.

Display Stats panel

The display stats panel is only visible in play mode. You can use it to debug performance issues in your project.

Debug Option	Description
Frame Rate	Displays the frame rate in frames per second for the current camera view.
Frame Time	Displays the total frame time for the current camera view.
RT Mode	If you enable ray tracing, it displays the ray tracing Tier used during rendering.
Count Rays	If you enable ray tracing, enable the checkbox to count the number of traced rays per effect (in MRays / frame).
	Ambient Occlusion	The number of rays that were traced for Ambient Occlusion (AO) computations, when you enable RT AO.
	Shadows Directional	The number of rays that were traced for directional lights, when you enable RT shadows.
	Shadows Area	The number of rays that were traced towards area lights, when you enable RT shadows.
	Shadows Point/Spot	The number of rays that were traced towards punctual (point/spot) lights, when you enable RT shadows.
	Reflection Forward	The number of rays that were traced for reflection computations using forward shading.
	Reflection Deferred	TThe number of rays that were traced for reflection computations using deferred shading.
	Diffuse GI Forward	The number of rays that were traced for diffuse Global Illumination (GI) computations using forward shading.
	Diffuse GI Deferred	The number of rays that were traced for diffuse Global Illumination (GI) computations using deferred shading.
	Recursive	The number of rays that were traced for diffuse Global Illumination (GI) computations when you enable recursive RT.
	Total	The total number of rays that were traced.
Debug XR Layout	Enable to display XR passes debug informations. This mode is only available in the editor and development builds.

Material panel

The Material panel has tools that you can use to visualize different Material properties.

Debug Option	Description
Common Material Property	Use the drop-down to select a Material property to visualize on every GameObject on screen. All HDRP Materials share the properties available.
Material	Use the drop-down to select a Material property to visualize on every GameObject on screen using a specific Shader. The properties available depend on the HDRP Material type you select in the drop-down.
Engine	Use the drop-down to select a Material property to visualize on every GameObject on a screen that uses a specific Shader. The properties available are the same as Material but are in the form that the lighting engine uses them (for example, Smoothness is Perceptual Roughness).
Attributes	Use the drop-down to select a 3D GameObject attribute, like Texture Coordinates or Vertex Color, to visualize on screen.
Properties	Use the drop-down to select a property that the debugger uses to highlight GameObjects on screen. The debugger highlights GameObjects that use a Material with the property that you select.
GBuffer	Use the drop-down to select a property to visualize from the GBuffer for deferred Materials.
Material Validator	Use the drop-down to select properties to display validation colors for: Diffuse Color: Select this option to check if the diffuse colors in your Scene adheres to an acceptable PBR range. If the Material color is out of this range, the debugger displays it in the Too High Color color if it's above the range, or in the Too Low Color if it's below the range. Metal or SpecularColor: Select this option to check if a pixel contains a metallic or specular color that adheres to an acceptable PBR range. If it doesn't, the debugger highlights it in the Not A Pure Metal Color. For information about the acceptable PBR ranges in Unity, see the Material Charts documentation.
	Too High Color	Use the color picker to select the color that the debugger displays when a Material's diffuse color is above the acceptable PBR range. This property only appears when you select Diffuse Color or Metal or SpecularColor from the Material Validator drop-down.
	Too Low Color	Use the color picker to select the color that the debugger displays when a Material's diffuse color is below the acceptable PBR range. This property only appears when you select Diffuse Color or Metal or SpecularColor from the Material Validator drop-down.
	Not A Pure Metal Color	Use the color picker to select the color that the debugger displays if a pixel defined as metallic has a non-zero albedo value. The debugger only highlights these pixels if you enable the True Metals checkbox. This property only appears when you select Diffuse Color or Metal or SpecularColor from the Material Validator drop-down.
	Pure Metals	Enable the checkbox to make the debugger highlight any pixels which Unity defines as metallic, but which have a non-zero albedo value. The debugger uses the Not A Pure Metal Color to highlight these pixels. This property only appears when you select Diffuse Color or Metal or SpecularColor from the Material Validator drop-down.
Override Global Material Texture Mip Bias	Enable the checkbox to override the mipmap level bias of texture samplers in material shaders. Use the Debug Global Material Texture Mip Bias Value to control the mipmap level bias override. When using this feature, be aware of the following: It only affects gbuffer, forward opaque, transparency and decal passes. It doesn't affect virtual texturing sampling. It doesn't affect custom passes.
Debug Global Material Texture Mip Bias Value	Use the slider to control the amount of mip bias of texture samplers in material shaders.

If the geometry or the shading normal is denormalized, the view renders the target pixel red.

Lighting panel

The Lighting panel has tools that you can use to visualize various components of the lighting system in your Scene, like, shadowing and direct/indirect lighting.

Shadow Debug Option	Description
Debug Mode	Use the drop-down to select which shadow debug information to overlay on the screen: None: Select this mode to remove the shadow debug information from the screen. VisualizePunctualLightAtlas: Select this mode to overlay the shadow atlas for Punctual Lights in your Scene. VisualizeDirectionalLightAtlas: Select this mode to overlay the shadow atlas for Directional Lights in your Scene. VisualizeAreaLightAtlas: Select this mode to overlay the shadow atlas for area Lights in your Scene. VisualizeShadowMap: Select this mode to overlay a single shadow map for a Light in your Scene. SingleShadow: Select this mode to replace the Scene's lighting with a single Light. To select which Light to isolate, see Use Selection or Shadow Map Index.
	Use Selection	Enable the checkbox to display the shadow map for the Light you select in the Scene. This property only appears when you select VisualizeShadowMap or SingleShadow from the Shadow Debug Mode drop-down.
	Shadow Map Index	Use the slider to select the index of the shadow map to view. To use this property correctly, you must have at least one Light in your Scene that uses shadow maps.
Global Scale Factor	Use the slider to set the global scale that HDRP applies to the shadow rendering resolution.
Clear Shadow Atlas	Enable the checkbox to clear the shadow atlas every frame.
Range Minimum Value	Set the minimum shadow value to display in the various shadow debug overlays.
Range Maximum Value	Set the maximum shadow value to display in the various shadow debug overlays.
Log Cached Shadow Atlas Status	Set the maximum shadow value to display in the various shadow debug overlays.

Lighting Debug Option	Description
Show Lights By Type	Allows the user to enable or disable lights in the scene based on their type.
	Directional Lights	Enable the checkbox to see Directional Lights in your Scene. Disable this checkbox to remove Directional Lights from your Scene's lighting.
	Punctual Lights	Enable the checkbox to see Punctual Lights in your Scene. Disable this checkbox to remove Punctual Lights from your Scene's lighting.
	Area Lights	Enable the checkbox to see Area Lights in your Scene. Disable this checkbox to remove Aera Lights from your Scene's lighting.
	Reflection Probes	Enable the checkbox to see Reflection Probes in your Scene. Disable this checkbox to remove Reflection Probes from your Scene's lighting.
Exposure	Allows you to select an Exposure debug mode to use.
	Debug Mode	Use the drop-down to select a debug mode. See Exposure documentation for more information.
	Show Tonemap curve	Enable the checkbox to overlay the tonemap curve to the histogram debug view. This property only appears when you select HistogramView from Debug Mode.
	Center Around Exposure	Enable the checkbox to center the histogram around the current exposure value. This property only appears when you select HistogramView from Debug Mode.
	Display RGB Histogram	Enable the checkbox to display the Final Image Histogram as an RGB histogram instead of just luminance. This property only appears when you select FinalImageHistogramView from Debug Mode.
	Display Mask Only	Enable the checkbox to display only the metering mask in the picture-in-picture. When disabled, the mask displays after weighting the scene color instead. This property only appears when you select MeteringWeighted from Debug Mode.
	Debug Exposure Compensation	Set an additional exposure compensation for debug purposes.
Debug Mode	Use the drop-down to select a lighting mode to debug. For example, you can visualize diffuse lighting, specular lighting, direct diffuse lighting, direct specular lighting, indirect diffuse lighting, indirect specular lighting, emissive lighting and Directional Light shadow cascades.
Hierarchy Debug Mode	Use the drop-down to select a light type to display the direct lighting for or a Reflection Probe type to display the indirect lighting for.
Light Layers Visualization	Enable the checkbox to visualize light layers of objects in your Scene.
	Use Selected Light	Enable the checkbox to visualize objects affected by the selected light.
	Switch to Light's Shadow Layers	Enable the checkbox to visualize objects casting shadows for the selected light.
	Filter Layers	Use the drop-down to filter light layers that you want to visialize. Objects having a matching layer will be displayed in a specific color.
	Layers Color	Use the color pickers to select the display color of each light layer.

Material Overrides	Description
Override Smoothness	Enable the checkbox to override the smoothness for the entire Scene.
	Smoothness	Use the slider to set the smoothness override value that HDRP uses for the entire Scene.
Override Albedo	Enable the checkbox to override the albedo for the entire Scene.
	Albedo	Use the color picker to set the albedo color that HDRP uses for the entire Scene.
Override Normal	Enable the checkbox to override the normals for the entire Scene with object normals for lighting debug.
Override Specular Color	Enable the checkbox to override the specular color for the entire Scene.
	Specular Color	Use the color picker to set the specular color that HDRP uses for the entire Scene.
Override Ambient Occlusion	Enable the checkbox to override the ambient occlusion for the entire Scene.
	Ambient Occlusion	Use the slider to set the Ambient Occlusion override value that HDRP uses for the entire Scene.
Override Emissive Color	Enable the checkbox to override the emissive color for the entire Scene.
	Emissive Color	Use the color picker to set the emissive color that HDRP uses for the entire Scene.

<td rowspan=2>Display Sky Reflection

Debug Option	Description
Fullscreen Debug Mode	Use the drop-down to select a fullscreen lighting effect to debug. For example, you can visualize Contact Shadows, the depth pyramid, and indirect diffuse lighting.
Tile/Cluster Debug	Use the drop-down to select an internal HDRP lighting structure to visualize on screen. None: Select this option to disable this debug feature. Tile: Select this option to display an overlay of each lighting tile, and the number of lights in them. Cluster: Select this option to display an overlay of each lighting cluster that intersects opaque geometry, and the number of lights in them. Material Feature Variants: Select this option to display the index of the lighting Shader variant that HDRP uses for a tile. You can find variant descriptions in the lit.hlsl file.
	Tile/Cluster Debug By Category	Use the drop-down to select the Light type that you want to display the Tile/Cluster debug information for. The options include Light Types, Decals, and Local Volumetric Fog. This property only appears when you select Tile or Cluster from the Tile/Cluster Debug drop-down.
	Cluster Debug Mode	Use the drop-down to select the visualization mode for the cluster. The options are: VisualizeOpaque: displays cluster information on opaque geometry. VisualizeSlice: Displays cluster information at a set distance from the camera. This property only appears when you select Cluster from the Tile/Cluster Debug drop-down..
	Cluster Distance	Use this slider to set the distance from the camera at which to display the cluster slice. This property only appears when you select VisualizeSlice from the Cluster Debug Mode drop-down.
Enable the checkbox to display an overlay of the cube map that the current sky generates and HDRP uses for lighting.
Sky Reflection Mipmap	Use the slider to set the mipmap level of the sky reflection cubemap. Use this to view the sky reflection cubemap's different mipmap levels. This property only appears when you enable the Display Sky Reflection checkbox.
Display Light Volumes	Enable the checkbox to display an overlay of all light bounding volumes.
	Light Volume Debug Type	Use the drop-down to select the method HDRP uses to display the light volumes. Gradient: Select this option to display the light volumes as a gradient. ColorAndEdge: Select this option to display the light volumes as a plain color (a different color for each Light Type) with a red border for readability. This property only appears when you enable the Display Light Volumes checkbox.
	Max Debug Light Count	Use the slider to rescale the gradient. Lower this value to make the screen turn red faster. Use this property to change the maximum acceptable number of lights for your application and still see areas in red. This property only appears when you set the Display Light Volumes mode to Gradient.
Display Cookie Atlas	Enable the checkbox to display an overlay of the cookie atlas.
	Mip Level	Use the slider to set the mipmap level of the cookie atlas. This property only appears when you enable the Display Cookie Atlas checkbox.
	Clear Cookie Atlas	Enable the checkbox to clear the cookie atlas at each frame. This property only appears when you enable the Display Cookie Atlas checkbox.
Display Planar Reflection Atlas	Enable the checkbox to display an overlay of the planar reflection atlas.
	Mip Level	Use the slider to set the mipmap level of the planar reflection atlas. This property only appears when you enable the Display Planar Reflection Atlas checkbox.
	Clear Planar Atlas	Enable the checkbox to clear the planar reflection atlas at each frame. This property only appears when you enable the Display Planar Reflection Atlas checkbox.
Debug Overlay Screen Ratio	Set the size of the debug overlay textures with a ratio of the screen size. The default value is 0.33 which is 33% of the screen size.

Volume panel

The Volume panel has tools that you can use to visualize the Volume Components affecting a camera.

Debug Option	Description
Component	Use the drop-down to select which volume component to visualize.
Camera	Use the drop-down to select which camera to use as volume anchor.
Parameter	List of parameters for the selected component.
Interpolated Value	Current value affecting the choosen camera for each parameter.
Other columns	Each one of the remaining columns display the parameter values of a volume affecting the selected Camera. They're sorted from left to right by decreasing influence.

Rendering panel

The Rendering panel has tools that you can use to visualize various HDRP rendering features.

Debug Option	Description
Fullscreen Debug Mode	Use the drop-down to select a rendering mode to display as an overlay on the screen.
	Motion Vectors	Select this option to display motion vectors. Note that object motion vectors aren't visible in the Scene view.
	NaN Tracker	Select this option to display an overlay that highlights NaN values.
	ColorLog	Select this option to display how the raw, log-encoded buffer looks before color grading takes place.
	DepthOfFieldCoc	Select this option to display the circle of confusion for the depth of field effect. The circle of confusion displays how much the depth of field effect blurs a given pixel/area.
	Quad Overdraw	Select this option to display an overlay that highlights gpu quads running multiple fragment shaders. This is mainly caused by small or thin triangles. Use LODs to reduce the amount of overdraw when objects are far away. (This mode is currently not supported on Metal and PS4).
	Vertex Density	Select this option to display an overlay that highlights pixels running multiple vertex shaders. A vertex can be run multiple times when part of different triangles. This helps finding models that need LODs. (This mode is currently not supported on Metal).
	TransparencyOverdraw	Select this option to view the number of transparent pixels that draw over one another. This represents the amount of on-screen overlapping of transparent pixel. This is useful to see the amount of pixel overdraw for transparent GameObjects from different points of view in the Scene. This debug option displays each pixel as a heat map going from black (which represents no transparent pixels) through blue to red (at which there are Max Pixel Cost number of transparent pixels).
	RequestedVirtualTextureTiles	Select this option to display what texture tile each pixel uses. Pixels that this debug view renders with the same color request the same texture tile to be streamed into video memory by the streaming virtual texturing system. This debug view is useful to see which areas of the screen use textures that the virtual texturing system steams into video memory. It can help to identify issues with the virtual texture streaming system.
	Max Pixel Cost	The scale of the transparency overdraw heat map. For example, a value of 10 displays a red pixel if 10 transparent pixels overlap. Any number of overdraw above this value also displays as red. This property only appears if you set Fullscreen Debug Mode to TransparencyOverdraw.
MipMaps	Use the drop-down to select a mipmap streaming property to debug.
	None	Select this option to disable this debug feature.
	MipRatio	Select this option to display a heat map of pixel to texel ratio. A blue tint represents areas with too little Texture detail (the Texture is too small). A bed tint represents areas with too much Texture detail (the Texture is too large for the screen area). If the debugger displays the original color for a pixel, this means that the level of detail is just right.
	MipCount	Select this option to display mip count as grayscale from black to white as the number of mips increases (for up to 14 mips, or 16K size). Red inidates Textures with more than 14 mips. Magenta indicates Textures with 0 mips or that the Shader doesn't support mip count.
	MipCountReduction	Select this option to display the difference between the current mip count and the original mip count as a green scale. A brighter green represents a larger reduction (that mip streaming saves more Texture memory). Magenta means that the debugger doesn't know the original mip count.
	StreamingMipBudget	Select this option to display the mip status due to streaming budget. Green means that streaming Textures saves some memory. Red means that mip levels are lower than is optimal, due to full Texture memory budget. White means that streaming Textures saves no memory.
	StreamingMip	Select this option to display the same information as StreamingMipBudget, but to apply the colors to the original Textures.
	Terrain Texture	Use the drop-down to select the terrain Texture to debug the mipmap for. This property only appears when you select an option other than None from the MipMaps drop-down.

Color Picker	Description
Debug Mode	Use the drop-down to select the format of the color picker display.
Font Color	Use the color picker to select a color for the font that the Color Picker uses for its display.

The Color Picker works with whichever debug mode HDRP displays at the time. This means that you can see the values of various components of the rendering like Albedo or Diffuse Lighting. By default, this displays the value of the main High Dynamic Range (HDR) color buffer.

Debug Option	Description
False Color Mode	Enable the checkbox to define intensity ranges that the debugger uses to display a color temperature gradient for the current frame. The color temperature gradient goes from blue, to green, to yellow, to red.
	Range Threshold 0	Set the first split for the intensity range. This property only appears when you enable the False Color Mode checkbox.
	Range Threshold 1	Set the second split for the intensity range. This property only appears when you enable the False Color Mode checkbox.
	Range Threshold 2	Set the third split for the intensity range. This property only appears when you enable the False Color Mode checkbox.
	Range Threshold 3	Set the final split for the intensity range. This property only appears when you enable the False Color Mode checkbox.
MSAA Samples	Use the drop-down to select the number of samples the debugger uses for MSAA.
Freeze Camera for Culling	Use the drop-down to select a Camera to freeze to check its culling. To check if the Camera's culling works correctly, freeze the Camera and move occluders around it.

Debug Option	Description
Clear Render Targets at creation	Enable the checkbox to make the Render Graph system clear render targets the first time it uses them
Disable Pass Culling	Enable the checkbox to render passes which have no impact on the final render.
Immediate Mode	Enable the checkbox to make the Render Graph system evaluate passes immediately after it creates them.
Log Frame Information	Press the button to log in the Console informations about the passes rendered during a frame.
Log Resources	Press the button to log in the Console the list of resources used when rendering a frame.

The NVIDIA device debug view is a panel that displays a list of the current feature states of NVIDIA Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS). Each row represents an active screen in which DLSS is running.

Information	Description
NVUnityPlugin Version	Displays the current internal version id of the NVIDIA Unity Plugin that interacts with DLSS.
NGX API Version	Displays the actual version which DLSS operates on.
Device Status	Displays the current status of the NVIDIA driver. If an internal error occurred when initializing the driver, Unity displays the error here.
DLSS Supported	Displays True if your project supports DLSS at runtime. Otherwise, displays False.
DLSS Slot ID	Displays an internal ID for the particular DLSS view being displayed.
Status	Displays whether the view is valid or invalid. A view is invalid if there is an internal error, or if the Scriptable Render Pipeline passes incorrect parameters.
Input resolution	Displays the current input resolution. Unity calculates this from the screen percentage specified for dynamic resolution scaling.
Output resolution	Displays the target resolution for this particular DLSS view.
Quality	Displays the quality selected for this particular DLSS view.

Camera panels

In the Rendering Debugger, each active Camera in the Scene has its own debug window. Use the Camera's debug window to temporarily change that Camera's Frame Settings without altering the Camera data in the Scene. The Camera window helps you to understand why a specific feature doesn't work correctly. You can access all the information that HDRP uses the render the Camera you select.

Note: The Camera debug window is only available for Cameras, not Reflection Probes.

The following columns are available for each Frame Setting:

Column	Description
Debug	Displays Frame Setting values you can modify for the selected Camera. You can use these to temporarily alter the Camera’s Frame Settings for debugging purposes. You can't enable Frame Setting features that your HDRP Asset doesn't support.
Sanitized	Displays the Frame Setting values that the selected Camera uses after Unity checks to see if your HDRP Asset supports them.
Overridden	Displays the Frame Setting values that the selected Camera overrides. If you don't check the Custom Frame Settings checkbox, check it and don't override any settings, this column is identical to the Default column.
Default	Displays the default Frame Setting values in your current HDRP Asset.

Unity processes Sanitized, Overridden, and Default in a specific order:

1. It checks the Default Frame Settings
2. It checks the selected Camera’s Overridden Frame Settings.
3. It checks whether the HDRP Asset supports the selected Camera’s Frame Settings
4. It displays that result in the Sanitized column.

Interpreting the Camera window

• In the image above, Ray Tracing is disabled at the Sanitized step, but enabled at the Default and Overridden steps. This means that, although Ray Tracing is enabled in the Frame Settings this Camera uses, it's not enabled in the HDRP Asset’s Render Pipeline Supported Features.
• Also in the image above, Decals is disabled at the Overridden step, but enabled at the Default step. This means that Decals is enabled in the default Camera Frame Settings but disabled for that specific Camera’s Custom Frame Settings.