Support lighting in URP

[dmerner]

Is there any chance that URP lighting support will be added to Nova in the future?

I've been working on some 3D environment menus using UIBlock3D which looks great, but it's using an unlit shader which looks strange in a 3D environment.

[cfarrier]

What is the reason it is unsupported currently?

[drew-512]

Indeed, the usual arguments -- was curious if you had your own leanings or basis. I'd believe anything at this point given some of the unimpressive potholes in Unity, but I digress.

URP support seems to be totally doable given how far Nova is already. Is it something that you would accept a bounty for? Is that something that moves the needle for you? Happy to take this conversation offline. Also, Folks like Ned are crazy talented with URP and could be part of the bounty perhaps. Happy to lead support for this charge and reach out to him.

[drew-512]

Isn't a workaround for URP is to just stick sprite renderers on UIBlocks2D of interest? Maybe that's a code snippet / demo to have available as this URP issue is going to keep coming up for people looking at Nova. If they see a decent looking URP demo, then they're going feel secure that (a) it's at least doable and (b) it's on the roadmap eventually. Lighting in Nova is a really slick things going for it, so this extra bit of work has huge payoffs for Nova imo -- marketing wise and value add wise.

With features like theme support, it becomes "easy" to offer an automated way that just adds URP-friendly quads or components that plug into a UIBlock's current size. Done!

I would def be open to contribute materially into a bounty for this kind of compelling workaround demo. What we're doing here integrates super well with Nova.

[dmerner]

Future support is the sole reason why we went with URP over the Built-In Render Pipeline. Sure, URP/HDRP both have some cool features like decal projectors, shader graph, volumes.etc, but it was mainly that we didn't want to waste time on a system that wasn't going to receive further support from Unity or the community. Also, the Unity project templates seem to use URP or HDRP by default (though to be fair, I haven't tested all of them).

Most of the assets that I've been using have had URP/HDRP options for years, or have ditched Built-In completely. One of the first things that I check for on an asset is whether it supports URP or HDRP. If it doesn't, then it's usually a sign that it's abandoned or has been made redundant by a feature that already exists in the newer render pipelines.

[drew-512]

Most of the assets that I've been using have had URP/HDRP options for years, or have completely ditched Built-In completely. One of the first things that I check for on an asset is whether it supports URP or HDRP. If it doesn't, then it's usually a sign that it's abandoned or has been made redundant by a feature that already exists in the newer render pipelines

Totally agree with all of this and is consistent w/ my experience as well. I was actually surprised when I saw Nova was SRP only. I sort of brushed it off with the assumption that it's a roadmap item that will come eventually (and has reasonable workarounds as I outlined above).

Anyway, I would immediately support Adam doing a (material) bounty raise for the theme feature and "preliminary placeholder" URP support.

[najak3d]

No URP support == shooting yourself in the foot. More than half of all new projects now will be using URP. Your target audience is probably limited mostly to these "new projects".

[najak3d]

Given the full-court press of Unity onto the URP, and Block-Shader concept (https://forum.unity.com/threads/block-shaders-surface-shaders-for-srps-and-more-public-demo-now-available.1350497/), our new project is most definitely URP.

I think your lack of URP lighting support is a killer, as is the lack of Web support.

Also, we need Tree Views. Short term, if you could cobble up some sort of composite TreeView sample, we'd need that too, but assuming that adding real TreeView support is coming within a year.

We want to go with Nova UI, but can't due to the lack of URP support. Starting out, we will be using TMP + UGUI for 3D UI, and the UI Toolkit for our main screen UI. But, what we can do for several months, is drag our feet on "polishing" our UI, knowing that we might jump ship and convert it all to Nova UI, which appears to be in a better state than Unity's own UI Toolkit.

You are a stellar developer. We want to see you succeed.

[najak3d]

TreeView and ListView alike should both be equipped with a "lazyLoad" option, to defer loading data from the database until just-in-time. Since the concept of "sorting" is really a "data Model" concern, it doesn't matter if TreeView (or ListView) supports sorting... it would be a nice bell/whistle though -- and adding "Search" to boot. But here again, all of those features can be add-ons that modify the data provided to the Tree View via the standard DataBinding DB API.

Avalonia (open-source) has done a nice job with it - loading millions of data items Just-in-Time, with no lag.

For us, we need to see URP and TreeView in order to leap onto this bandwagon. Currently Unity's UI Toolkit provides both.

What I like about Nova is that it seems to be a hybrid of uGUI and UIToolkit, and has a developer who has accomplished so much in the last 6 months alone.

I'd like to see the Nova Roadmap and know that he is committed to providing the equivalent of StyleSheets - to enable easy/natural reskinning.

[adgray1]

While I appreciate the vote of confidence, I certainly can't take sole credit for Nova. There are two of us working on it and have been since day one, myself and @dkonik.

As for a TreeView, for what it's worth, it's possible this could be achieved with the current ListView API. List items don't need to be uniform in height, so you could bind the top level elements to a list, and then set the list items to Shrink on Y, so they match the layout size of their child subhierarchy as it expands/collapses - and you'll want to set to Shrink for all sub levels as well. Admittedly, if you have a deep tree (i.e. more then 3 levels), performance may come up as an issue on less powerful hardware (e.g. mobile, Quest, etc.) when you page in/out a root element with a bunch (maybe 10s) of expanded child sub-elements, but it may never be an issue if you generally have flatter trees with only a few children per node, even if there are a lot of root elements. Just an option that may work for you today.

All that said, if a TreeView component (or "proper" tree view support) is something you'd like to see added to Nova, please create a new feature request! That will help us track the work item, and the visibility/user feedback will help us prioritize it!

As for this URP thread here, since you mention UI Toolkit providing both URP and TreeView support, and as far as I know UI Toolkit doesn't support lighting at all (please correct me if I'm wrong), I do just want to clarify this conversation is specific to Nova lighting support in URP. All Nova unlit features (gradients, dropshadows, rounded corners, text, etc.) are fully functional in URP/HDRP.

[najak3d]

That's a vital note the deficiency is only to do with "lighting".

A big part of what helps us make a decision is based upon how "mainstream" Nova UI becomes. And currently, in the "Unlit UI" domain space, I think UI Toolkit has a leg up, due to it being free and prioritized by Unity, and it's standardized equivalency to Web development... which is an industry standard for UI's that is no longer just a web-thing (e.g. WPF, Xamarin Forms, Avalonia, etc). So that's a difficult model to win against, unless you also provided a XML-layout equivalent with Style-Sheet equivalents.

Nova UI would seem superior to uGUI, for in-scene UI's -- except for it's lack of URP/HDRP support, and WebGL. So here, uGUI has a leg-up on Nova UI.

Nova UI has potential. But ATM, is losing it's battles on both fronts (not for everyone, but for the vast majority). If it loses these battles decisively, then things get worse over time for those who chose Nova UI, because the competition will get stronger.

I think the Unity UI Toolkit is aiming for "in-scene GUI's as well" longer-term, and thus will be lit.

So for now, we've got to throw our eggs into the Unity UI Toolkit basket. And our In-scene UI needs are scant right now (that might change) and can mostly be satisfied by sprite-backboards with TMP text. (health bar, name labels, status of game objects)

We're looking for an excuse to use Nova UI, but don't yet have enough confidence to justify this choice yet.

Keep up the great work. What you have here is very impressive.

[najak3d]

Back again. After spending hours learning and trying to use the UI Toolkit, it's out-of-box shabbiness has become apparent.

For a decent looking UI, we're going to have to create ALL of our own complex controls (even Combo Dropdown, etc), and TreeView equivalents, etc.

And so we return, and maybe willing to spring for NovaUI, based upon the rapid progress you've achieved so far, and extrapolating from there. We're going to spend a few hours on NovaUI now (samples, free trial) and see how it stacks up against Unity's UIToolkit.

[drew-512]

Welcome back to the punchbowl!

Same is happening hear and are looking forward to supporting @adgray1 and everyone else working hard moving Nova along.

Gonna just throw this out there, but would there be an interest in a weekly 90 min roundtable where we can all connect, ask questions, and offer support to others in the community?

[lucasmontec]

URP is necessary for any serious games built with a CG and TA team. SRP unfortunately doesn't allow for modern rendering techniques without much hassle.