Modify surface options without changing your graph

Description

Enable Allow Material Override to modify a specific set of properties for Universal Render Pipeline Lit and Unlit Shader Graphs and for Built-In Render Pipeline Shader Graphs in the Material Inspector.

Important

The Built-In Render Pipeline is deprecated and will be made obsolete in a future release.
It remains supported, including bug fixes and maintenance, through the full Unity 6.7 LTS lifecycle.
For more information on migration, refer to Migrating from the Built-In Render Pipeline to URP and Render pipeline feature comparison.

Property	Behavior
Workflow Mode	Refer to the URP documentation for the Lit URP Shader. Note: Not applicable to URP Unlit and the Built-In Render Pipeline.
Receive Shadows	Refer to the URP documentation for the Lit URP Shader. Note: Not applicable to URP Unlit and the Built-In Render Pipeline.
Cast Shadows	This property is only exposed if Allow Material Override is enabled for this Shader Graph. Enable this property to make it possible for a GameObject using this shader to cast shadows onto itself and other GameObjects. This corresponds to the SubShader Tag ForceNoShadowCasting. Note: Not applicable to the Built-In Render Pipeline.
Surface Type	Refer to the URP documentation for the Lit URP and Unlit URP shaders. Note: In the Built-In Render Pipeline, this feature has the same behavior as in URP.
Render Face	Specifies which faces of the mesh the shader renders. The options are: Front: Renders only front-facing triangles. This is the default. Back: Renders only back-facing triangles. Both: Renders both front and back faces in a single pass. Back To Front: Renders back faces first, then front faces, in two passes. Front To Back: Renders front faces first, then back faces, in two passes. Note: Use Both instead of Back To Front or Front To Back, unless draw order between faces matters (for example, for transparent blending or stencil shadow volumes). Note: Back To Front and Front To Back are available only in URP. Front, Back, and Both behave the same in the Built-In Render Pipeline.
Alpha Clipping	Refer to the URP documentation for the Lit URP and Unlit URP shaders. Note: In the Built-In Render Pipeline, this feature has the same behavior as in URP.
Override Depth	Enables explicit control over depth writes and the depth test for this Shader Graph. When disabled, depth follows the default behavior for the surface type: enabled for opaque, disabled for transparent. When enabled, Write Depth and Depth Test become editable. Note: Not applicable to the Built-In Render Pipeline.
Write Depth	Determines whether the GPU writes pixels to the depth buffer when it uses this shader to render geometry. This option's functionality corresponds to the command ZWrite in ShaderLab. To override this setting in a RenderStateBlock, set the depthState. This property is only available if Override Depth is enabled. Note: Not applicable to the Built-In Render Pipeline.
Depth Test	Sets the conditions under which pixels pass or fail depth testing. The GPU does not draw pixels that fail a depth test. If you choose anything other than LEqual (the default), consider also changing the rendering order of this material. The options are: LEqual (default): Unity draws the pixel if its depth value is less than or equal to the value in the depth texture. Never: Unity never draws pixels of the affected surface. Less: Unity draws pixels if their depth coordinates are less than the current depth buffer value. Greater: Unity draws pixels if their depth coordinates are greater than the current depth buffer value. GEqual: Unity draws pixels if their depth coordinates are greater than or equal to the current depth buffer value. Equal: Unity draws pixels if their depth coordinates are equal to the current depth buffer value. NotEqual: Unity draws pixels if their depth coordinates are not the same as the current depth buffer value. Always: Unity draws this surface to your screen regardless of its z-coordinate. This option's functionality corresponds to the command ZTest in ShaderLab. To override this setting in a RenderStateBlock, set the depthState property. This property is only available if Override Depth is enabled. Note: Not applicable to the Built-In Render Pipeline.
Override Stencil	Processes and overrides the Stencil buffer values. When enabled, the Stencil sub-properties are available. For more information about how stencil works in shaders, refer to ShaderLab command: Stencil. Note: Not applicable to the Built-In Render Pipeline.
Override Passes	Controls which passes the depth and stencil state overrides apply to. Toggle each pass independently: Color Pass: Apply during the main forward color pass (opaque or transparent). PrePass: Apply during the depth or depth-normals prepass. Opaque only. Shadow Pass: Apply during the shadow caster pass. Requires the renderer's Shadowmap Stencil setting to be enabled, otherwise the shadowmap has no stencil bits to write to. This property is shown for Opaque surfaces and any time Allow Material Override is on. Note: Not applicable to the Built-In Render Pipeline.

Stencil override sub-properties

The properties in this section are only available if Override Stencil is enabled. The Shader Graph stencil controls map directly to the ShaderLab Stencil command.

Note: Not applicable to the Built-In Render Pipeline.

When Render Face is set to Both, Back To Front, or Front To Back, the per-face properties (Compare Function, Pass, Fail, Z Fail) appear separately under Front face and Back face sub-sections. Otherwise they appear once and apply to whichever face is being rendered.

Property	Behavior
Stencil Ref	Sets the reference value that Compare Function compares against the stencil buffer value for each pixel. Unity writes this value to the buffer if Pass is set to Replace. Edit the value by typing a decimal number or by clicking individual bit cells (MSB on the left). The valid range matches the user-accessible portion of the stencil byte that the URP renderer reserves for shaders.
Read Mask	Sets the binary AND mask applied to stencil values before comparison. The default is `0xFF`.
Write Mask	Sets the binary AND mask applied to stencil values before the stencil write operation (Pass, Fail, Z Fail). The default is `0xFF`.
Compare Function	Sets the function Unity uses to compare the Stencil Ref value with the value in the stencil buffer, for each pixel. For the list of available functions, refer to CompareFunction.
Pass	Sets the stencil operation Unity performs on the stencil value when the stencil test passes. For the list of available operations, refer to StencilOp.
Fail	Sets the stencil operation Unity performs on the stencil value when the stencil test fails. For the list of available operations, refer to StencilOp
Z Fail	Sets the stencil operation Unity performs on the stencil value when the stencil test passes but the Z test fails. For the list of available operations, refer to StencilOp

Write Color toggle (URP Unlit only)

The Unlit Shader Graph has an additional Write Color toggle. The toggle is enabled by default. Disable it to reduce the shader to a utility that writes only to the depth and stencil buffers and never to color. Use this to mask geometry into the depth or stencil buffer without affecting the rendered image.

Note: Not applicable to the Built-In Render Pipeline.

When Write Color is disabled, the following changes apply:

The Base Color block is removed from the master node.
Surface Type is forced to Opaque and is hidden in the Graph Inspector and Material Inspector.
Blending Mode is hidden.
Additional Motion Vectors and Alembic Motion Vectors are hidden.
The shader is treated as forward-only (similar to the Complex Lit shader). It does not participate in the deferred GBuffer phase. The depth prepass writes depth before the GBuffer phase, so occlusion of deferred objects still works.
All other surface options (including Render Face, Alpha Clipping, Override Stencil, Cast Shadows, Receive Shadows) remain available.

How to use

To use the Material Override feature:

Create a new graph in Shader Graph.
Save this graph.
Open the Graph Inspector.
Set Active Targets to Universal or Built In.
In the Graph Inspector's Universal or Built In section, enable Allow Material Override.
Create or select a Material or GameObject which uses your Shader Graph.
In the Material Inspector, modify Surface Options for the target Material or GameObject.