A CameraA component which creates an image of a particular viewpoint in your scene. The output is either drawn to the screen or captured as a texture. More info
See in Glossary can generate a depth, depth+normals, or motion vector texture. This is a minimalistic G-buffer texture that can be used for post-processingA process that improves product visuals by applying filters and effects before the image appears on screen. You can use post-processing effects to simulate physical camera and film properties, for example Bloom and Depth of Field. More info post processing, postprocessing, postprocess
See in Glossary effects or to implement custom lighting models.
These are mostly used by effects; for example, post-processing effects often use depth information.
Pixel values in the depth texture range between 0 and 1, with a non-linear distribution. Precision is usually 32 or 16 bits, depending on configuration and platform used. When reading from the Depth Texture, a high precision value in a range between 0 and 1 is returned. If you need to get distance from the Camera, or an otherwise linear 0–1 value, compute that manually using helper macros.
Depth Textures are supported on most modern hardware and graphics APIs. Special requirements are listed below:
The Camera’s depth Texture mode can be enabled using Camera.depthTextureMode variable from script. It is also possible to build similar textures yourself, using Shader Replacement feature.
There are three possible depth texture modes:
These are flags, so it is possible to specify any combination of the above textures.
Depth textures can come directly from the actual depth bufferA memory store that holds the z-value depth of each pixel in an image, where the z-value is the depth for each rendered pixel from the projection plane. More info
See in Glossary, or be rendered in a separate pass, depending on the rendering pathThe technique that a render pipeline uses to render graphics. Choosing a different rendering path affects how lighting and shading are calculated. Some rendering paths are more suited to different platforms and hardware than others. More info
See in Glossary used and the hardware. Typically when using the Deferred ShadingA rendering path in the Built-in Render Pipeline that places no limit on the number of Lights that can affect a GameObject. All Lights are evaluated per-pixel, which means that they all interact correctly with normal maps and so on. Additionally, all Lights can have cookies and shadows. More info
See in Glossary rendering path in the Built-In Render PipelineA series of operations that take the contents of a Scene, and displays them on a screen. Unity lets you choose from pre-built render pipelines, or write your own. More info
See in Glossary, the depth textures come “for free” since they are a product of the G-buffer rendering anyway.
When enabled, the MotionVectors texture always comes from a extra render pass. Unity will render moving GameObjectsThe fundamental object in Unity scenes, which can represent characters, props, scenery, cameras, waypoints, and more. A GameObject’s functionality is defined by the Components attached to it. More info
See in Glossary into this buffer, and construct their motion from the last frame to the current frame.