HDRP

Scene and Avatar Guide

"The built-in pipeline looked like a sketch, HDRP looks like a memory you swear happened,"

The High Definition Render Pipeline provides AAA quality graphics new in Fusion allowing creators to hop into realistic environments and avatars, shadows that wrap around every corner, materials that look alive. Experience recording mocap in a whole new high definition world, and review in HD VR with no lag! Build custom scenes using state-of-the-art volumetric lighting, fog, clouds that drift, IOR just happens in water, rain bends light, fires that blaze, ice block like frosted glass .. for VTubers HDRP is pure synergy! Cameras with depth-of-field, motion blur, avatars with real skin, blush, sub-surface-scattering, fabric that breaths light, hair that glimmers in the sun. All right out of the box.

Avatars so real they resemble a dream. You can slap on toon shaders and give avatars that pop against realistic stylized environments. Rebuild existing rigs in HD and get supermodel status! And you get to see all the action in real-time VR >60fps on modern PCs (eg. 3080),

HDRP is reality that demands attention!

Use screen capture tools such as OBS to capture the desktop camera viewport, share it, live stream it. You're the creator in VR, your audience is the desktop!!

VTubers: HDRP makes your avatar look like she walked out of a dream.

Animators: HDRP gives you the cheat code: real-time final. You hit record and it already looks like the poster.

Everyone Else: HDRP in VR makes avatars look so real, you'll ask what would they like for dinner.

Installing Unity

Start by installing the latest version of Unity 6000 from Unity Hub.

in this tutorial I'm using 6000.3.5f2, later versions should work.

Create a new project. I named the project APS_SDK_HDRP.

Search for the templates "High Definition" and select High Definition 3D , this sets up Unity on first launch so the editor is configured for HDRP.

Unity does not include the HDRP package by default, we need to install it from package manager.

Now you have a empty scene with a Global Volume already added.

When the project loads you must install HDRP from the package manager.

From the file menu go to: Window > Package Management > Package Manager

By default Unity doesn't include the HDRP package. We need to install it from package manager.

From package manager search for "High Definition Render Pipeline" and install the package.

After the HDRP package is installed you can create HD materials that include Diffusion Profiles and setup Volumes in scenes.

Import the APS_SDK and enable the HD render pipeline.

Download the APS_SDK and import it into the project.

⚠️Make sure you are using SDK version 10.4.8 or later so it includes the diffusion profiles D1..D5, explained later.

Import the APS_SDK and import it into the project.

Make sure to download version 10.4.8 or later so diffusion profiles are included.

Diffusion Profiles are explained further down.

Setup the render pipeline to use HDRP and install the XR plugin to enable stereo rendering.

Install the XR Plugin

Edit > Project Settings > XR Plugin Management > Install XR Plugin Management

Enable OpenXR

After the XR plugin has finished installing enable the OpenXR checkbox to enable the stereo render mode.

OpenXR Render Mode

Last thing is make sure the render mode is set to Single Pass Instanced:

⚠️ Important Last Step

From the APS_SDK dropdown menu click on Set HDRP Render Pipeline.
This adds the APS_SDK_HDRP define symbol, and enables HDRP build support in all SDK scripts.

✔️✔️✔️Editor Setup Complete

That was a lot of steps!! 😅 Everything should now be setup for HDRP and ready to start building custom AAA assets 🚀

Next import your avatar .fbx into the Unity project, Read the full avatar tutorial here.

HD materials can then be assigned just like standard materials but include advanced rendering options such as SSS and Translucency.

Lets get started by adding a Diffusion Profile to the avatar and setup the materials to use them!

HDRP Avatars

These are mostly notes compiled during the development of the update when migrating to the new pipeline and SDK , this guide is not complete and only discusses details pertaining to HDRP material setup, volumes, diffusion profiles, cameras and lighting. If you are not familiar with importing and building mocap avatars for Fusion using the APS_SDK start by watching this tutorial.

If you're familiar with building mocap avatars for Fusion then rebuilding any avatar for HD should be a walk in the park!!

When rebuilding avatars for HDRP pipeline the only difference is the materials!

Diffusion Profile (Hair)

To add sub surface scattering (SSS) to materials for avatar hair, ears, fingers, you can create a modify any of the custom DP1..DP5 Diffusion Profiles to adjust color and scattering settings.

You must use one of the pre-defined profiles from the APS_SDK folder. You can modify them and the settings saved and bundled with the asset. Up to five custom profiles, so use sparingly!

Create a material and assign one of the Diffusion Profiles to the material, if the material becomes pink/invalid click on the "Fix" button and it should render.

Up to five custom Diffusion Profiles (DP1..DP5) can be used for hair, ears, skin.. Maybe more in the future!

This animation shows a backlight that illuminates the hair and passes through the thin mesh giving a subsurface glow.

The light is a small area light + spot light rig.

The area light is used for accurate shadows up close, and the spot light so it glows in volumetric fog!

Diffusion Profile (Cotton Cloth)

For cotton or clothing you can use the built-in Cotton Thin diffusion profile, not all built-in profiles were included, but cotton is supported!!

Create a material and assign the Cotton Thin profile to the material, if the material becomes pink/invalid click on the Fix button and it should render.

Once the cotton-profile has been added you can use it on any clothing material in the scene.

For clothing use the built-in HDRP cotton shader. Works and is simple to create a new material.

No more flat shaded clothing, looks like real fabric.

You can also adjust the stitch pattern, the amount of fuzz...

Be sure to use built-in "Cotton Thin" diffusion profile.

Diffusion Profile (Ears + SSS)

More advanced masks can be used that allow you to control how light transmission affects the surface. Assign one of the unused custom Diffusion Profiles to the material

Create a material and assign one of the D1..D5 Diffusion Profiles to the material, make sure to use a unique profile,

If the material displays as pink click the Fix button.

The profile was added now adjust SSS and Transmission values.

Material Type

Set the material type to Subsurface Scattering.:

Transmission Mask Texture

Materials with SSS enabled allow you to add a Transmission Mask, this tells the shader where to let light through and how much. It's the same as a UV texture but uses pixel intensity values as the weight. You can create a mask texture using Blender:

The transmission mask textures are simple and doesn't require much artistic ability, you can use Blender's Texture Paint tool and paint right on the model where you want the transmission to appear.

For ears typically the transmission is high in the middle and and less towards the edges, I added noise and dark spots so the light passes through the ear but is not perfectly. Also notice how the ears tips get full transmissive weight.

Also make the ears a separate material, in Blender assign just those faces you want SSS , this reduces the amount of work on the GPU.

Now assign the DP1 Diffusion Profile and set the color tint to (Hex: #4B282C) with a scattering multiplier of ~3 since ears are typically thin.

You should notice backlight passes through the ears where the transmission mask texture was painted.

Diffusion Profile (Wings + Translucency)

Enabling Sub Surface Scattering works to give the appearance of thin fabric or feathers. For wings setting the material type to Translucent allows light to pass through like paper.

If the material displays as pink click the Fix button.

The profile was added now adjust SSS and Transmission values.

Material Type

Set the material type to Subsurface Scattering:

Emissive lit material with area tube light for real-time light.

Translucent feathers thin fabric wings material with area and spot real-time lights in volumetric fog.

HDRP Scenes

Global Volumes (Custom Scene)

Add a scene model to your project's assets folder or use a prebuilt scene such as classroom from CGTrader.com:

Make sure the scene includes a global volume, lights and a reflection probe, then bake the scene lighting

If you're familiar with building mocap scenes for Fusion then rebuilding any scene for HD should be a walk in the park!!

When rebuilding scenes for HDRP pipeline the only difference is the materials, and a Volume component!

File > New Scene then select "Indoors (HDRP)" template.

The loaded scene includes a default Global Volume.

You can edit this volume to modify the scene or add fog, sky..

Locate the Global Volume in the hierarchy and crank up the fog, bloom and lens flare.

Now you see lots of post processing like the world is on fire.

This is just a scene to start from. You can import more complex models into template scenes and get started creating AAA scenes quickly.

Alternatively try the "Outdoors (HDRP)" template scene if you need a sky setup with clouds!

When lights get very close (less than 1 meter) to a surface it can cause issues with SSS, this applies only to lights that casts shadows.

Area lights produce more accurate shadows and give a better appearance on SSS materials, and simple lights work with volumetric fog, so one option is to combine the two!

This works for lights at very close range eg. desk lamp.

Adding Mirrors

⚠️This mirror prefab is NOT the same as the VR mirror that's part of the main UI!!

It's recommended to use the Mirror prefab provided in the APS_SDK because the light layer is already set to the "mirror" layer mask (eg. 2 = mirror layer) this avoids specular highlights on the mirror surface so the surface appears perfectly reflective.

Note mirrors are not RTX reflection, raytracing is not required.

The PlanerReflectionProbe when in real-time mode is expensive so expect slight fps drop, results may vary depending on hardware.

Add A Mirror Prefab

Optionally, if you'd like to add a permanent mirror in the scene, eg. a bedroom mirror.

Look for the "Mirror Plane (HDRP)" prefab and add that to the scene. You should the mirror with reflection and avatar in the mirror.

Enable Light Layers

Enable Light Layers from the Project Settings for the mirror to work properly with specular reflections.

Now the scene includes a mirror, some lights and a Global Volume so we can move to compiling the scene as a game asset. Delete the avatar from the scene if you've added it, save everything. Make sure you've added a spawn point and click on "Build Scene", in the next step, using the Scene Asset Builder tool provided in the APS SDK. This bundles the scene to a .scene file you can load in the game.

Build The Scene

Now that you have a scene setup and ready you can build the .scene asset file.

Open the SceneAssetBuilder from APS_SDK > Window > Scene Asset Builder

Then click on Build Current Scene. Save the scene first!

Once the .scene file is generated add the asset to the VR_MocapAssets_HDRP folder, not old VR_MocapAssets folder.

The folders are separate! HD assets get placed in the VR_MocapAssets_HDRP folder. Click the button to open the dest. folder.

Launch The Game (Steam Beta)

You have to install the HD version of Mocap Fusion to use the HDRP pipeline. From Steam games menu right click on Mocap Fusion title and click Properties > Game Versions & Betas menu. Select "hdrp_version" to install the game with HDRP support.

When the game finishes installing press PLAY to launch 🚀

Headset on,

Avatar loaded,

Scene loaded,

Look around,

Breathe, you're done!

Auto-Focus (DOF)

The Depth Of Field (DOF) near plane is automatically calculated using a spherecast when the "Auto" checkbox is enable.

This works like laser focus, point the camera at something of interest, wait for it to focus, then untick "Auto" to lock the focus.

DOF Angel.mp4

When you add a Camcorder prop it uses the Global Volume so the desktop, cameras and VR all see the same bloom and fog from the Volume component in the scene.

From the Scene Cameras panel you can adjust the DOF settings for any scene camera, auto-focus speed, far plane, spread, blur..

Or disable DOF entirely for any camera,

DOF Teacher.mp4

Real-time HD VR Mocap

Classroom scene + Depth Of Field (DOF) + Volumetric Fog.

Enable or disable Depth Of Field (DOF).

Top To Bottom

This concludes the HDRP guide but more will be coming soon! There is still lots to cover, the possibilities are endless.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this guide and that has been helpful, maybe even fun!

G.

Nice Tips

Will my old assets still work?

Some, if they used standard shaders they'll be converted to HD shaders automaticlly, not perfect.

Assets that used any other custom shader will likely render as pink, so would need to be rebuilt with HDRP enabled and using HDRP compatible shaders, or rewrite the existing shaders , or use shadergraph to create new shaders for HDRP, Or download 3rd party HDRP toon, disolve or fire shaders..

What if my avatar looks flat?

She won't, not in HDRP, but if the avatar does turn up the subsurface weight, turn drop the specularity. Add soft area backlights with shadows. A touch of bloom and the skin tones will pop. Works for streams, works when you're alone. Same trick!

What if the shadows look too harsh?

Soften 'em. use area lights with bigger radius, ceiling light, back lights, filllights - wrap the avatar in soft layers.

Can I bake the lighting for streams?

HDRP is a power realtime lighting engine, but you can also bake static mesh in scenes and create even better looking environments with real AO and shadows everywhere. The volumetric and realtime lights look even more incredible against the baked scene!

Why would I need this when my current setup already works?

Because right now they watch your stream,

With HDRP they watch you.

And they don't know how to leave.

Do I need a beast PC to run this?

Anything that runs Unity 6000 editor should run HDRP. Ideal GPUs are 3080 or 4090RTX , the desktop view is still crisp, the VR experience doesn't lag. Even complex avatars with lots of blendshapes, multiple diffusion profiles, physics, and still renders at ~90 fps,
Simple scenes that don't include realtime reflection probes are better when recording mocap. For live streams the viewport looks seamless,

Does the avatar still look good on low settings?

HDRP is light years ahead of the old built-in pipeline, even at low settings.

Will HDRP kill my fps?

If scenes include lots of realtime reflections probes, or the avatar material use diffusion profiles on complex meshes then fps may drop. It's recommended to model your avatars so that materials assign only to faces that need SSS, only the faces that require diffusion get diffusion, while the rest of the faces use a material that does not have diffusion.

Note: you can adjust the quality options in-game for better performance.

Is there a fullscreen switch?

Yeah! Click F11 with the game view in focus to toggle between fullscreen and windowed mode.

It's recommended to keep the application in fullscreen mode. This improves performance. When the game is in windowed mode it doubles GPU calls and is not as efficient as fullscreen or minimized, so when not in fullscreen you may notice slight lag in the VR , especially when looking at mirrors, or if multiple scene cameras have been added..

Will I have to redo my animations?

No need to re-record anything , as long as the avatar folder name stays the same when you build the new HD avatar then all previous recorded mocap will just play! Even in HDRP.

Why do I need HDRP when I can just use the default pipeline?

Because on day you load you're avatar, turn on the light, and she looks like she's waiting for you to say hello. And that hello... It doesn't feel like a game anymore.

Does it work on older gaming rigs?

Maybe, but probably not. If you have a 3080 bare minimum you're probably golden.

Can I use custom shaders?

Custom shaders are supported in HDRP , HLSL and shaderlab can be ported to the new pipeline. While shadergraph is the preferred tool for creating shaders for HDRP. There are also many HDRP shaders available for toon shading, dissolve, and cloth. Including the built-in default HD shaders that are highly configurable.

Why do I need HDRP when I just animate in 2D anyway?

Because on day you hit play on a rough cut and your own character winks at you.

And you realize you've been faking the story with flat light for years.

What headsets work best?

Any HMD should work to allow you to see the avatar and scenes in HD. Lighthouse enabled HMDs are still the choice for accuracy so look for those, pimax+lighthouse, Vive, BSB all are great for immersive HDRP.

My assets in the VR_MocapAssets folder are not loading?

Use the VR_MocapAssets_HDRP folder (notice the "_HDRP" part) for any HDRP version assets, if you copy old assets from VR_MocapAssets > VR_MocapAssets_HDRP some may still work! If the old models used standard shaders they'll be automatically converted to HDRP materials when loaded, so many custom assets for the legacy pipeline should just work in the new pipeline!

Try copying a few assets over and see if they load in HD.

Will more than five diffusion profiles been added?

D1..D5 are the only profiles that were added/reserved for user customization, there is a hard limit of 16, or 15 enforced by Unity design, already the list contains some of the built in diffusion profiles, so only 5 were made available to not overcrowd the list until we're for sure no more built-in profiles need to be added.

So yeah!! Totally, in the future maybe D1..D10 can be made available, maybe even more!

What if it looks too good and everyone thinks its CGI?

That means you did it right.

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