Universal Render Pipeline (URP) Guide

Best practices for learning and experimenting

Start with a clean URP project, then import or copy assets, scenes, folders, and similar items from existing projects.

This guide covers real-time lighting only, as it comes in Unity’s URP template scene.

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Definitions

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Render Pipeline

A Render Pipeline is an asset that defines the rendering pipeline (URP, HDRP) and its settings. For URP, the render pipeline references one or more Renderer assets and a default Volume Profile asset.

Render Pipeline assets are assigned in Project Settings → Quality. Each quality level or target platform may use different RP settings. You can set a default Render Pipeline asset in Project Settings → Graphics, which is used when none is assigned in Quality.

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Renderer

A Renderer asset configures the rendering path, renderer features, and other settings of the Render Pipeline. All Renderers used by a given Render Pipeline should be referenced in Render Pipeline → Renderer List. These renderers may then be assigned to individual cameras.

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Volume Profile

A Volume Profile is an asset containing a set of lighting and post-processing settings. There are:

Default Volume Profile Settings for URP, referenced at Project Settings → Graphics.

Includes the default parameters for all available effects, but it does not specify which are enabled or disabled.
A default Volume Profile Override, configured in Render Pipeline → Volumes → Volume Profile.

Specifies which effects are enabled and, optionally, a custom configuration. This is the default setup for all effects when this Render Pipeline is in use.
Any number of additional Volume Profile Overrides in the scene (Volume component) can selectively apply further overrides to post-processing effects.

These may be Global (affecting the entire scene) or Local (covering an area within a collider). The final effects and values are calculated from all active Volume components.

If there are no Volume components in the scene, then the default setup is used.

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Suggested Settings folder

For storing all the URP and lighting related assets, along with suggested naming scheme:

URP settings and preferences

URP is primarily configured in Project Settings → Quality, where each quality level or target platform may reference a different Render Pipeline asset.

graph LR
    %% Quality Settings path
    QS["<b>1. Quality Settings</b><br/>Project Settings → Quality"]
    RP["<b>3. Render Pipeline</b><br/>asset in Settings\\Lighting"]
    RD["<b>4. Renderer</b><br/>asset in Settings\\Lighting"]
    DVP["<b>5. Volume Profile Overrides</b><br/>asset in Settings\\Volumes<br><i>&#40enabled effects&#41</i>"]
    %% Quality Settings flow
    QS --> RP
    RP --> RD
    RP --> DVP
    
    %% Styling with darker muted colors that work in both light and dark modes
    classDef settingsNode fill:#4a5568,color:#fff
    classDef assetNode fill:#39314D,color:#fff
    classDef rendererNode fill:#554829,color:#fff
    classDef volumeNode fill:#364B40,color:#fff
    
    class QS settingsNode
    class RP assetNode
    class RD rendererNode
    class DVP volumeNode

Default settings are referenced in Project Settings → Graphics:

A Default Render Pipeline to be used when no RP is configured in the current Quality level.
The default Volume Profile Settings, which is applied globally when URP is active.

graph LR
    %% Graphics Settings path
    GS["<b>2. Graphics Settings</b><br/>Project Settings → Graphics"]
    DRP["<b>3. Default Render Pipeline</b><br/>asset in Settings\\Lighting"]
    GVP["<b>5. Default Volume Profile</b><br/>asset in Settings\\Volumes<br><i>&#40 effects configuration only&#41</i>"]
    %% Graphics Settings flow
    GS --> DRP
    GS --> GVP
    
    %% Styling with darker muted colors that work in both light and dark modes
    classDef settingsNode fill:#4a5568,color:#fff
    classDef assetNode fill:#39314D,color:#fff
    classDef volumeNode fill:#364B40,color:#fff
    
    class GS settingsNode
    class DRP assetNode
    class GVP volumeNode

Definitions

URP settings and preferences

1. Project Settings → Quality

2. Project Settings → Graphics

3. Render Pipeline assets

4. Renderer assets

5. Volume Profile assets

Scene components and settings