My journey becoming a Unity game developer: Post Processing

Objective: Installing and using Post Processing to add special effects for reflections in a scene.

Reflection Probe vs Screen Space Reflection

Go to Window->Package Manager and install the Post Processing package from the Unity Registry.

Installing the Post Processing package.

Click on the Main Camera, go to Add Component->Rendering->Post Processing Layer. Go to the Layer tag, and add a new layer name Post Processing. Come back to the Layer tag and change the layer to Post Processing. Come back down to Post Processing Layer component, go to Layer and select Post Processing.

Create a new game object and name it Post Processing Object or “GO” for game object abbreviation. Click Add Component, select Rendering->Post-process Volume. Turn ON Is Global, and either create a new Profile or add a Post Processing Profile you created earlier. Click on Add Effect and choose the effects that works best in your scene.

Creating a Post Processing Layer and a game object for Post-process Volume.

I elected to use Bloom, Color Grading, and Ambient Occlusion to experiment with. If you have on Auto Generate in the Lighting tab, you will see results automatically. If not, make sure to click on Generate Lighting to see final results from modifying effects. These effects are being shown from the Reflection Probe.

Reflection Probe turned on featuring added effects.

One other setting that’s very effective is Screen Space Reflections. This reflection gives a cleaner, sharper, shinier look to reflections. This works well with water puddles or wet floor surfaces. It reflects both static and dynamic objects to create realistic reflections.

Screen Space Reflections turned on.

Now see the difference between Reflection Probes and Screen Space Reflections. Notice the difference in how many more reflections we see with Screen Space Reflections. It’s ideal for consoles and desktops.

Screen Space Reflections turned on and Reflection Probes turned off.

With Screen Space Reflections, if you use Custom as your Preset to fine tune settings, it’s very resource intensive. Therefore, it’s recommended to use Medium as the Preset as you can you can boost lower resolutions systems quality preset and get similar timings with a higher visual quality. Known limitations with Screen Space Reflections is that it doesn’t support AR/VR, and doesn’t support URP.