FAQ

No. It is a full-screen effect: on Forward it works on the rendered image, and on Deferred it rewrites the GBuffer before lighting. Your materials, shaders, textures and lightmaps are untouched, and removing the effect returns the scene to exactly how it was.

Five effects: dirt that builds into a crust, dust that settles on whatever faces up, moss, metal aging that dulls and discolors bare metal, and rust, the last two restricted to metallic surfaces and the last with its own run-off. Moss and rust bring their own PBR surface sets. On top of that, color variation against the flat repeated look of large surfaces, plus sun bleaching and a vertical gradient.

Yes. It does not need anything special from the shader that produced a surface, as long as the material is opaque and writes depth and normals (or the GBuffer on Deferred). Terrains, buildings, props and characters from any source receive the effect; unlit shaders on the Deferred path need their layers added to Forward Only Layers.

Because they are meant for metal, and the metalness of a surface is something only the GBuffer knows. On Deferred, Global Dirt reads it and multiplies it by the Strength, so a painted wall next to a steel beam stays clean while the beam corrodes. On Forward that information does not exist, so both effects become an approximation that reaches every surface, metal or not. The other three work the same on every path.

Metal aging keeps the metal: it loses its polish and shifts color, but it stays a metal surface with its original normal and no deposit on top. Rust replaces it with corrosion, a real deposit with its own color, roughness and relief, plus optional run-off below the patches. They are independent and compose, so you can have dull metal with no rust, rust on bright metal, or both.

No. Lens dirt sticks to the camera. Global Dirt puts dirt, dust, moss and corrosion on the surfaces of the world, placed by shelter, cracks and orientation, and it stays put as the camera moves.

Unity 6.1 (6000.1) or newer with URP 17.1 and Render Graph, on the Forward, Forward+ and Deferred paths. The Built-in pipeline and HDRP are not supported.

It runs wherever URP with Render Graph runs. As with any full-screen effect, profile on your target device; the Performance Tips page explains which settings cost the most and what is free.

Yes, with zones: oriented box areas with soft borders, a priority and a per-zone weight. By default the global effect stays everywhere and each zone customizes its box: Exclude From Global Dirt keeps it clean, a profile gives it its own look. To dirty only chosen areas, turn on Limit To Zones in the global volume: the effect then shows only inside zones, each with its own profile if you want, and the rest of the scene stays clean. See Zones. You can also use standard local volumes with different override values.

Yes. Add a Global Dirt Object component and give it a Volume Profile with a Global Dirt override: every parameter you check replaces the global value on that object. The same component also keeps the dirt attached while the object moves, or keeps the object clean. Its Include setting decides whether it covers one renderer, its children, a layer or a list you pass from script.

Up to a point, and that is by design: the deposits are procedural so they never read as a repeated tile. Each one has its own Seed, which picks another arrangement, and its own Offset, which slides it through the scene in meters. Together with Under Cover, Cracks, zones and object profiles, that is enough to put the aging where a shot needs it.

No, and that is deliberate. You set the aged look and it stays exactly there: no simulation, no warm-up, no surprises after an hour of play. If you want aging over time, animate the global Intensity or the individual effect sliders from script, see the Scripting Support page.

No. The sky has no surface, so it is automatically left alone, as are transparent materials.

Set Intensity to zero, from the inspector or from script. At zero the effect does not render at all, so there is nothing left to pay for.