How to Install the Universal Render Pipeline (URP) in Unity
Objective: To learn how to install the URP into a new and existing project in Unity.
How to Install the URP in a New Project
On the screen where you create your new project in Unity Hub just simply choose the Universal Render Pipeline option:
Once the project is open, you can now start to create your project using the URP OR you can import a previously saved scene (package) following these steps:
Right Click in the Project window and select ‘Import Package’ → ‘Custom Package’. Locate where you saved the package and hit ‘Open’. You will now be brought to this screen where you select what you want to import and then simply hit the ‘Import’ button.
Once the package has loaded and you have opened your scene, your assets might all be pink (this is normal and we will fix this up as the last step). This is because the exported scene was previously using Unity’s Standard Renderer and all the shaders/materials need to be updated to the Universal Render Pipeline.
Now, we have 3 more steps to get the URP functioning in your project.
They're creating a Scriptable Render Pipeline Asset, changing the Graphics Settings and upgrading your assets to the URP.
Creating the Scriptable Render Pipeline Asset
The steps involved here are right clicking in the ‘Project’ window → ‘Create’ → ‘Rendering’ → ‘Universal Render Pipeline’ → ‘Pipeline Asset’. This will now show up in your Project window:
Update Graphic Settings to New ‘UniversalRenderPipelineAsset’
Now we need to update the newly created asset to the Graphics Settings in Unity:
The steps are: “Edit” → “Project Settings” → “Graphics”. Now within the ‘Scriptable Render Pipeline Settings’ field select the newly created ‘Universal Render Pipeline Asset’.
Upgrade Your Project to URP
The final step is to now upgrade your assets to the URP. Instead of doing it one-by-one manually, let’s take the shortcut and upgrade them all at once:
The steps shown above are: “Edit” → “Render Pipeline” → “Universal Render Pipeline” → “Upgrade Project Materials to UniversalRP Materials”.
How to Install URP in an Existing Project
Firstly we want to head to the top Navigation bar in your open Unity project and click on “Window”. From here head to “Package Manager” and make sure “All Packages” is selected from the drop down menu:
Scroll down till you see Universal RP, and from here we want to hit the “Install” button:
You will still need to create the Universal Render Pipeline Asset and update the Graphics Settings as shown in the new project above.
Voila! Assets have been updated to the Universal Render Pipeline…
