Troubleshooting

Find your symptom below. For a simple comparison scene, use the original prefab and materials in the Quick Start.

Materials are pink

1. Check Project Settings > Graphics and the active Quality level. Confirm that the effective render pipeline asset is HDRP.
2. In Package Manager, confirm that High Definition RP is installed for your Unity version. Check that you imported the HDRP edition and followed any version-specific package instructions.
3. After completing setup, open a supplied demo. If the demo is pink too, read the first relevant shader error in the Console before changing individual materials. If the demo renders, compare the affected material’s Shader and texture references with the original.

See Installation and HDRP setup.

The planet is too dark or too bright

• Confirm that the Directional Light reaches the hemisphere you’re viewing. Rotate it until a lit face is visible.
• If the entire frame is too dark or bright, check that the camera’s Environment > Volume Mask includes the Volume’s layer. Enable the intended overrides and use Fixed Exposure to compare. Lower EV100 to brighten the frame, or raise it to darken.
• If the surface is readable but an emitter washes out the frame, lower its material gain or the Volume’s Bloom. Check that Tonemapping is set to the intended mode.
• Compare the sky, ambient lighting, reflections and Fog in the active Volume if the result differs from a demo.

See Lighting and exposure.

Light from below looks too dim in fog

If Demo 01 has colored rims but the lit faces look unusually dark, height fog may be dimming the direct light. In the Unity 2022.3.52f1 and HDRP 14.0.11 setup, check the directive in the embedded HDRP configuration and let Unity finish compiling. Keep Fog enabled and compare in Game view with the Demo 01 reference.

The atmosphere is missing or flickers

1. Check that the atmosphere child and Mesh Renderer are enabled, the camera sees its layer, and the original material is assigned.
2. Use a Perspective camera outside the shell with sufficient far clipping distance. For flicker in Game view, try increasing Clipping Planes > Near to about 0.2 or higher, keeping nearby parts of the planet and shell in view. If the flicker is in Scene view, open the Camera settings from the camera icon in its toolbar. Turn off Dynamic Clipping to adjust the Scene view’s Clipping Planes > Near.
3. Restore the authored shell transform, radii and Global Scale. Keep the original opaque body in place.
4. Keep Use Point Light off for the planetary setup, enable one Directional Light and rotate it to bring the bright rim into view. Restore the preset light_intensity and scattering colors if you edited them.

See Atmosphere.

City lights are invisible

Check that the dark side faces the camera, the three city maps are present on the Terrestrial body, CityLight Population is positive, and CityLight Color has visible HDR intensity. Use fixed Exposure and look closely at the dark terrain. See City lights and the night side.

Rings look solid, faint or disappear

On Planet_Gas_01, confirm the Planet_Ring_01 child uses the Transparent Ring preset. Restore the original surface settings and Detail Map, check Ring Tint alpha, and look at the ring from an angle where the bands are visible. For a replacement map, check its red channel. For a separate shadow caster, check its alpha channel, cutoff and HDRP shadow distance. See Gas planets and rings.

Other planets changed when I edited mine

The renderers share the edited material asset. Undo the material edit or restore its previous values if you have a saved copy. Then duplicate the material and assign the duplicate to the instance you want to customize.

The Sun is bright but nearby planets stay dark

The Sun prefab’s material emission makes the star visible. Add a Unity Directional Light or Point Light to illuminate nearby planets. See Light neighboring bodies.