How to Install the Universal Render Pipeline

Objective: Install URP and update standard RP assets.

Before we begin, I think it’s best that we discuss what Render Pipelines are. There are two Render Pipelines that I will be discussing. Universal Render Pipeline (URP) and HD Render Pipeline (HDRP).

When you decide to make a game, you will need to decide what Rendering Pipeline you will want to use. If you’ve been following along, I have been building in the standard pipeline. The URP is a lightweight pipeline. The URP is very similar to the standard Pipeline, the biggest difference is that the URP is optimized to run better. The lightweight rendering pipeline can run up to 4x better than the standard Pipeline.

The HDRP is used when you want to get to the high-end graphics or get into high-end visual fidelity. If you plan on using a lot of shadows, a lot of lighting, volumetric lights, double-sided transparent renderers, real time area lights, and so on, you should use the HDRP

I’m going to be using the URP so I’ll show you how to upgrade to the Universal Render Pipeline. The steps are the same for setting up the HDRP. The first thing we want to do is, instead of upgrading my current project to URP, I’m going to create a new project.

I’m going to be creating an HDRP version of this level later so I need to save this with the same title as the original with the addition of URP.

From here I’ll open the original project and export the scene. Make sure when you are exporting scenes you save them in a save location.

Now you can open your new project and we can import the scene.

You may notice when you load the scene that there is something missing.

If you select an asset you’ll see that it is still trying to use a standard shader. The standard shader doesn’t apply here, we need to use the URP.

Instead of going through and changing all of these by hand just go to Edit > Render Pipeline > Universal Render Pipeline > Upgrade Project Materials to Universal RP Materials, then select proceed.

It goes through and adjust all of our materials to match the URP. Sometimes you’ll have an asset come in and it is still pink. You will have to select that asset individually. Go into its shader pipeline and adjust it. I’ll see you in the next tutorial!