Evolve your Graphics with new demo projects and sessions from Unite Now

When it comes to graphics, you need to be able to push your visuals and have the control to be able to decide what matters to you most. That’s why we created the Graphics sessions for Unite Now, our digital programming series of inspiring talks, demos, Q&As and stories – to level up your Unity skills and knowledge. 

In this blog, we rounded up Unite Now sessions, demos, projects, and other resources to help you take your graphics to the next level. Dive into sessions and demo projects available for the Universal Render Pipeline (URP), High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP), VFX Graph, Lighting, Unity’s short film – The Heretic, and more.

Unite Now Session and demo projects for the High-Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP)

Delivers state-of-the-art graphics on high-end platforms and is best to use if your goal is more targeted – pushing graphics on high-end hardware, delivering performant powerful high-fidelity visuals.

Achieving High Fidelity Graphics for games with the HDRP

Artists, designers, or engineers, can use this tutorial to learn how to get the most out of HDRP, which is purpose-built for creating AAA-quality visuals for current and next-gen games.

Other HDRP resources:

• Unite Now session: Improving Visual Fidelity: Get up to speed with HDRP
• Unite Now webinar: High Fidelity Visuals with HDRP
• Blog: HDRP: Out of Preview in 2019.3 
• Blog: How to setup Unity’s High Definition Render Pipeline for high-end visualizations 
• Blog: Creating immersive, photorealistic VR experiences with HDRP 
• Blog: High Definition Render Pipeline real-time ray tracing is now in Preview 

The Heretic short film: Demo projects for download, sessions, and blog articles – rounded up for you.

The Heretic short film uses every aspect of Unity’s High Definition Rendering Pipeline, and features advanced effects created with the VFX Graph, and showcases the Demo Team’s first realistic digital human.

We’re happy to tell you that one of the most requested elements of this production – the Digital Human Character and Technology stack – is now available for you to download! 

We introduce Morgan, a VFX-based character created with the help of Visual Effect Graph. We’ve recently released it as a project on the Unity Asset Store, so you can see for yourselves how we have approached the design of this complex character, and manipulate it directly in the Unity Editor.

Dive into these other resources for The Heretic:

• Learn more about the project on The Heretic website
• Unite Now session: Meet the Devs: The Heretic Short Film
• Unite Now session: Meet the devs: Deep dive into The Heretic Assets
• Blog (and download!): The Heretic: Digital Human package out now
• Blog: Making of The Heretic: Digital Human tech package
• Blog: Making of The Heretic: Digital Human Character Gawain 
• Blog article (and download!): The Heretic: VFX Character out now
• Blog: Making of The Heretic: The VFX-driving character Morgan 
• Blog: Making of The Heretic: Environment Art
• Video: HDRP lighting features in The Heretic 

Unite Now Sessions and demo projects for the Universal Render Pipeline

The Universal Render Pipeline (URP) does not replace or encompass the High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP). URP is designed for optimized real-time performance and scalability to low and high end devices. It supports the latest artist tools, and it’s suitable for 2D, 3D, virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR).

Evolving game graphics with the Universal Render Pipeline 

This webinar included an in-Editor demonstration of the Boat Attack demo project and recently released graphics features and artist tools in the Universal Render Pipeline which will improve your game. There is an overview of URP and then we cover highly-requested tools such as Scriptable Render Features for custom render pass visuals, Camera Stacking for HUD UI, and more. 

Other resources on how Boat Attack was made using the Universal Render Pipeline

• Download the Boat Attack demo project here
• Video: Boat Attack and Universal RP in Unity! (Overview)
• Video: Making a Water Shader in Unity with URP (Tutorial)
• Blog: Achieve beautiful, scalable, and performant graphics with the Universal Render Pipeline
• Unite Now session: Better Artist Workflows in Unity – an Overview

2D Graphics with the Universal Render Pipeline

The 2D Renderer is now available in Universal Render Pipeline, it brings the graphics capabilities and authoring tools to 2D projects. We put our new 2D tools through their paces to create a 2D side scroller demo called Lost Crypt. You can download it from the Unity Asset Store compatible with 2019 LTS or 2020.1.

Other 2D Graphics resources:

• Tutorial: 2D Lights and Shadows in Unity 2019 
• Unite Now: Power to the Artists:: The evolution of 2D game tools

Visual Effect Graph – Building VFX in the Spaceship demo project

This session dives into the Spaceship Demo project to show how the team created and integrated visual effects, lighting and sound into Timeline sequences. You’ll also learn some cool scripting techniques to make the effects react to gameplay. The demo project can be downloaded here.

Other resources for VFX Graph

• Watch the video of the Spaceship demo here
• Download the Spaceship demo here
• Blog: Now Available: The Spaceship Demo project using VFX Graph and HDRP
• Unite Now tutorial: Making Snow with VFX Graph
• VFX Graph sample effects are available for download here
• Blog: Create beautiful and complex effects with VFX Graph: Verified in 2019.3 
• Blog (and download!): The Heretic: VFX Character out now 
• Blog: Making of The Heretic: The VFX-driving character Morgan

The Heretic: VFX Character Available Now To Download

We’re excited to see your own take on Morgan, and how far you can take the VFX Graph with this character, as well as how you will use it for your own projects. Download it from the Unity Asset Store or Github.

Learn how to Harnessing Light with URP, GPU Lightmapper, and Open Image Denoise

In this video, you’ll gain an understanding of how lights and shadows work in the Universal Render Pipeline, as well as how to set up a scenario with a mix of real-time shadows, Light Probes, and baked GI.

Supercharge CPU light baking speeds with Open Image Denoise 

Depending on your scene’s complexity, light baking can take anything from minutes to days. By limiting the number of lighting passes you can make as you design a scene, creativity is stifled, preventing you from reaching the look you envisioned. In this session, Intel showcases how an integrated Open Image Denoise library allows you to leverage the post-processing stack, giving you high fidelity baked lighting with fewer samples, in faster time, all on the CPU. 

Other lighting resources:

• Tutorial: Setting up Environment Lighting in Unity 2019.3 with HDRP 
• Tutorial: Volumetric Lights in HDRP with Unity 2019.3 
• Video: Reflections and Refractions in Unity 
• Tutorial: 2D Lights and Shadows in Unity 2019 
• Tutorial: Real-time Animation and Lighting in Unity 

There is much more Unite Now content to watch!

These are just a few of the graphics sessions from Unite Now and demo projects that are available for download. Visit the Unite Now homepage to see all of the sessions, webinars, and tutorials that are available and coming soon.