Troubleshooting

intermediate troubleshooting

This page covers the most common issues users encounter with Volumetric Lights 2 for Built-in RP and how to resolve them.

Symptom	You added the Volumetric Light component but see no volumetric effect in Game view.
Cause	The light may be disabled, the camera may be outside the light range, or the density is too low.
Solution	Ensure the Unity Light component is enabled (or enable Always On on the Volumetric Light). Verify the camera is within the light's range. Increase the light range or move the camera closer. Increase Density to at least `0.2` and Brightness to `1.0` or higher. Check that Light Mode is not set to a mode incompatible with your light type. Make sure the volumetric mesh's Render Queue places it after opaque objects.

Symptom	Visible bands or steps in the volumetric fog instead of a smooth gradient.
Cause	Insufficient ray-march samples or missing dithering/jittering.
Solution	Increase Raymarch Quality or switch to a higher quality preset. Enable Dithering and Jittering to break up visible steps. Enable Use Blue Noise for more uniform dithering distribution. Add the Post Process component and apply 1–2 Blur Passes.

Symptom	Shadow occlusion is enabled but objects do not cast shadows into the volumetric light.
Cause	The shadow culling mask does not include the object's layer, or the object's shadow casting is misconfigured.
Solution	Verify the object's layer is included in the Volumetric Light's Shadow Culling Mask. Ensure the object's Mesh Renderer has Cast Shadows set to On (not Shadows Only — this is not supported by Volumetric Lights). For point lights, check that the Shadow Bake Mode covers the direction of the object relative to the light. Try setting Shadow Bake Interval to EveryFrame to confirm shadows work before switching to OnStart.

Symptom	Errors or visual glitches when shadow occlusion is enabled alongside shaders that use `GrabPass` (e.g., water shaders).
Cause	The shadow camera's depth-only render texture format conflicts with Grab Pass.
Solution	Enable Use Default RT Format in the Shadow Occlusion section (this is the default). Alternatively, place the conflicting object on a separate layer and exclude it from the Shadow Culling Mask.

Symptom	Runtime error when shadow occlusion computes and `OptimizeShadowCasters` is set to `false`.
Cause	Certain object shaders are incompatible with unoptimized shadow rendering.
Solution	Enable OptimizeShadowCasters on the Volumetric Light component. If you need it disabled, place the problematic objects on a separate layer and exclude that layer from the Shadow Culling Mask.

Symptom	Transparent objects (glass, particles, UI) are drawn behind the volumetric effect.
Cause	Transparent objects do not write to the depth buffer. The volumetric effect renders in the transparent queue and may draw on top.
Solution	Adjust the Render Queue of the volumetric light to render before your transparent objects. On the Post Process component, enable Render Before Transparent Objects. For specific transparent objects, adjust their shader's render queue to be higher than the volumetric light's queue.

Symptom	First build takes several minutes compiling Volumetric Lights shaders.
Cause	Shader keyword combinations generate many variants. This is normal for the first build.
Solution	This is a one-time cost — Unity caches compiled shaders for subsequent builds. To reduce variants, see Build Optimizations for removing unused keywords.

Symptom	Volumetric effect looks incorrect or does not render properly with an orthographic camera.
Cause	Orthographic projection support is disabled by default in the shader.
Solution	See the Orthographic Camera Support page for enabling the `ORTHO_SUPPORT` shader define.

If your issue is not covered here, please visit the Kronnect Support and post your question. Our team typically responds within 24 hours.

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