Getting started

The installation information contains the installation requirements and instructions for preparing to install, installing, configuring the Sci-Fi Effects for various rendering pipelines.

Choosing which render pipeline to use

The Sci-Fi Effects supports the following render pipelines:

• The Built-in Render Pipeline is Unity’s default render pipeline. It is a general-purpose render pipeline that has limited options for customization.

• The Universal Render Pipeline (URP) is a Scriptable Render Pipeline that is quick and easy to customize, and lets you create optimized graphics across a wide range of platforms.

• The High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP) offers uncompromising GPU performance. Achieve looks ranging from photorealism to stylized.

Projects made using URP are not compatible with the High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP) LWRP, or the Built-in Render Pipeline. Before you start development, you must decide which render pipeline to use in your Project. For information on choosing a render pipeline, see the Render Pipelines section of the Unity Manual.

Installing from the Asset Store or Unity Package Manager

Make sure your project is always backed up before proceeding with any upgrade!

Use the Unity Package Manager window (in Unity’s 2020+ top menu: Window > Package Manager) or the Asset Store built in browser to download and extract the Sci-Fi Effects in your project.

The downloaded package provides support for three different rendering pipelines and can be found in the root of the Assets/FORGE3D/Sci-Fi Effects/ folder:

• Sci-Fi Effects 2.2 Standard Renderer

• Sci-Fi Effects 2.2 HDRP

• Sci-Fi Effects 2.2 URP

1. Double click the .unitypackage compatible with your rendering pipeline to extract the content of the package.

2. After the process is complete you will find new content under the Assets/FORGE3D/Sci-Fi Effects/ folder.

3. You can safely remove unwanted .unitypackages after the extraction.

Please note there is no cross compatibility between Standard Renderer Pipeline and LWRP/URP/HDRP, and you should only extract one package that is compatibe with your selected rendering pipeline.

Standard Rendering Pipeline

The standard renderer version is included as .unitypackage under the Assets/FORGE3D/Sci-Fi Effects/ and cannot replace any existing SRP version of the asset.

Warning: Do not extract the Standard Renderer .unitypackage into existing project if you have SRP version of the Sci-Fi Effects installed. By doing so you will overwrite the previous package content and break the structure of the asset.

It is highly advised to backup your project before proceeding with an update to avoid any losses.

Other than the note of warning above, the Standard renderer pipeline requires no extra configuration and should be ready out of the box. Check with the Set color space chapter to continue.

Scriptable Rendering Pipeline (HDRP/URP)

Creating an HDRP Project from the Template:

• Unity provides an HDRP Template Project which you can use to quickly get set up with HDRP. To create an HDRP Template Project:

  1. Open the Unity Hub, go to the Projects tab, and click New.

  2. Enter a Project Name and, in the Template section, click on High Definition RP.

  3. Click Create.

To use the Universal Render Pipeline (URP), you can start a new Project or upgrade an existing Project. You can do this in the following ways:

• Create a new URP Project from a Template. If you are starting a new Project from scratch, this is the best choice. When you do this, Unity automatically installs and configures URP for you.
• Install URP into an existing Unity Project. If you have started a Project using the Built-in Render Pipeline, you can install URP and configure your Project to use URP. When you do this, you must configure the URP yourself. You will need to manually convert or recreate parts of your Project (such as lit shaders or post-processing effects) to be compatible with URP.

Opaque and Depth textures

To ensure the proper output of the heat/blastwave/refraction shader, open the Universal Render Pipeline Asset and check the Opaque Texture to allow the GrabPass in the Heat shader. You can also check Depth Texture to enable soft particles.

The Universal Render Pipeline Asset controls the global rendering and quality settings of your Project and creates the rendering pipeline instance.

Universal Rendering Pipeline location

Open your Universal Render Pipeline Asset and check the Opaque Texture to allow the GrabPass in the Heat shader. You should also check Depth Texture to enable soft particles.

Set color space

Working with linear color means lighting and rendering in a color space where the mapping between numeric color values and absolute color is a straight line. This is the standard in digital cinema and is the best way to produce realistic lighting.

The Sci-Fi Effects is built in Linear color space. To set your project settings to linear color space go to Edit > Project Settings > Player and select Linear using drop down list

Linear color space

While a linear workflow ensures more precise rendering, sometimes you may want a gamma workflow (for example, on some platforms the hardware only supports the gamma format).

As a matter of personal preference you might decide to stay in gamma space thus it may require tweaking material color values depending on the situation. Most of the materials are good for using with both color spaces.

Read more on Linear or Gamma workflow.

Effect prefabs

Some of the one shot particle effects are looped over time for demo purposes. It may require to uncheck the Looping flag for the particle system and its children before use.

Particle system 'Looping' flag location