Post Processing In Unity

Post processing allows us to apply image effects and filters to our game. Think of it like photoshop for you game.

To get started with post processing, we need to install it from the Unity Package manager.

In the Unity Editor, go to the window tab, scroll down to package manager and select it. At the top, open the dropdown menu and select Unity Registry. On the top right, you can search for post processing.

Select the package, and in the bottom left, if it is not installed already, there will be a button to install. after that you can just close out of the package manager.

This will take a few minutes to install, and recompile your project. At the end of it, you will have the post processing package in your packages folder.

The post processing package is where we can use a variety of Unity owned and maintained products. W will use it to grab the Post Processing stack.

To use post processing effects in Unity we need to create a post processing profile. For that we will create a game object that will hold our post processing profile.

Let’s create an empty game object and call it post processing volume.

This game object will control all of the post processing affects for our game and the image filters we apply.

On our object, we can add the component “post processing volume”, which will allow us to apply the effects to our game.

Be sure that the box “Is Global” is checked. This ensures that the effects are applied to our entire project environment.

You can have a global and a local Post Processing volume to control different environments simultaneously. For example, if we have a desert racing game and there is a section where the car drives into a cave, you can use a local post processing volume to control the cave environment separately.

For this game, we are just using the global volume.

Next, we need a profile. If you select the new button, it will automatically build a profile.

NOTE: If you are working with multiple profiles, you can set their priority from the Priority box.

Inside of our scene, we will have the post processing profile.

If we go back to our post processing game object, we can begin to add effects. One of the most important effects you can use is the Bloom effect.

Bloom is going to take the emission data from our materials and enhance them.

Select the game object. In the inspector, select the add effect button, then Unity, then Bloom.

If you immediately start messing with the effects, you may notice that nothing is happening. That is because for the post processing to work, we have to tell our main camera to render the effects.

To do that, there is a component that we have to add called post process layer. Select your main camera in the Hierarchy. Click the add component button and find the post process layer component.

For this to work properly we have to define a layer to apply our post processing effects.

Select your post processing object in the Hierarchy, go up to layer in the inspector, and select add layer.

From here we can add a layer and call it Post Processing.

With the layer created, we can go back to our main camera, and select the post processing layer in the inspector.

The last thing that we need to do is go back to our post processing object and set the layer to our post processing layer.

Now when we adjust the intensity, we can see the affects in our scene.

Bloom allows you to bring out the image's intensity in the scene.

Another effect we will be looking at is the color grading effect.

First you’ll need to add the component to your Post Process Volume object like we did with Bloom.

Select the “All” button to enable all functions. In the mode, select High Definition Range (HDR). You will notice a waring comes up. It tells us to switch to Linear, or use LDR mode instead.

We want to use HDR mode, so we need to change our build settings to Linear.

Go to file and select project settings. In the project settings window select Player settings. In your player settings you will see a setting called color space. Change it from Gamma to Linear. This will recompile your project and allow us to use the tone mapping.

After it recompiles, you can close out of the project settings.

Now we can truly use HDR. Back in the post inspector we can choose our tone mapping mode. Experiment with which one you like the best. For the purposes of this article, we will use the ACES mode.

NOTE: ACES is very similar to what the film industry is using.

We can adjust the temperature and see how it affects our scene. The lower the value, the cooler we get; the higher the value, the warmer we get.

This is your time to be creative. Experiment with as many of the effects as you want. Make your game YOURS!