Parameters

intermediate concepts

Volumetric Lights 2 (URP) · Core Concepts

Volumetric Light Parameters

The VolumetricLight component exposes all settings in the Inspector, organized into collapsible sections. There are two light modes:

Simple — optimized, fewer options, best for mobile or background lights.
Volumetric — full ray-marching with all features enabled.

Rendering

Parameter	Description	Default
Blend Mode	Blend (alpha blending) or Additive (adds light intensity to existing pixels).	Blend
Raymarch Quality	Number of ray-marching iterations. Lower values improve performance.	Default preset
Min Step Size	Minimum step size along the ray. Increase for better performance at the cost of accuracy.	0.1
Max Steps	Maximum number of samples per ray. Caps performance cost for long rays.	200
Dithering	Reduces color banding in the volumetric effect.	1
Jittering	Randomizes ray start position to reduce banding. Especially useful when shadows are enabled.	0.5
Use Blue Noise	Uses blue noise instead of white noise for jittering. Slightly more expensive but reduces moire patterns.	Off
Render Queue	Controls rendering order in the transparent queue.	3100
Sorting Layer / Order	Additional render order control.	Default / 0
Flip Depth Texture	Enable if the effect clips incorrectly due to an inverted depth buffer (can happen when MSAA and HDR are both off).	Off
Always On	Forces the volumetric effect to render even if the Unity light is disabled. Useful for fake volumetric lights with zero lighting overhead.	Off

Appearance

Parameter	Description	Default
Use Noise	Enables 3D noise texture for a heterogeneous medium (clouds, dust).	Off
Noise Texture	3D noise texture. A default is provided in `Resources/Textures`. Additional options in `Demo/NoiseTextures`.	Built-in
Density	Medium density inside the volume. Higher values produce a more opaque effect. Very low density over a large range increases ray-march cost.	0.3
Brightness	Overall intensity multiplier for the volumetric effect.	1
Brightness Mode	Whether the volumetric brightness depends on the Unity light intensity. Relative multiplies Brightness by the light intensity, so changing the light intensity also changes the volumetric effect. Absolute ignores the light intensity, so a profile produces the same volumetric appearance on lights with different intensities.	Relative
Diffusion Intensity	Controls the intensity of forward scattering when looking toward the light source.	0
Distance Falloff	Controls how the effect fades toward the edges of the volume.	1
Border	Additional edge falloff (no effect on point lights).	0.1

Dust Particles

Parameter	Description	Default
Enable Dust Particles	Adds floating dust motes inside the light volume using a particle system with a volume-aware shader.	Off
Dust Brightness	Brightness multiplier for dust particles.	0.5
Dust Min/Max Size	Size range of individual dust particles.	0.01 / 0.03
Dust Wind Speed	Wind speed affecting particle drift.	0

Shadow Occlusion

Parameter	Description	Default
Enable Shadows	Enables volumetric shadow occlusion inside the light volume.	Off
Shadow Intensity	Amount of light cancelled by shadows (0 = no shadow, 1 = full).	0.7
Shadow Resolution	Shadow map resolution. Lower values are faster; usually 256–512 is sufficient.	256
Shadow Culling Mask	Which layers cast shadows. By default excludes TransparentFX (where volumetric lights live), unless Include Transparent is enabled.	Everything
Include Transparent	When enabled, transparent objects and 2D sprites also occlude the volumetric light. The shadow-occlusion depth capture then spans the transparent render queue and the built-in TransparentFX layer is no longer auto-excluded from the Culling Mask. The occluder material must write depth (have a `DepthOnly` pass).	Off
Shadow Bake Interval	OnStart: bakes once. EveryFrame: updates each frame. Moving/rotating the light auto-rebakes regardless.	EveryFrame
Shadow Bake Mode (Point)	Half-sphere (faster, oriented to camera) or Cubemap (full 360°, option to spread across frames).	Half-sphere
Shadow Orientation (Point)	Fixed direction or auto-orient to player camera.	Camera
Shadow Near Distance	Near clip plane for the shadow camera. Skips objects too close to the light.	0.01
Translucency	Captures colors of transparent objects (requires `VolumetricLightsTranslucency` script on those objects). See Translucency & Shadow Maps.	Off

Tip: When Shadow Bake Interval is set to OnStart, call ScheduleShadowCapture() on the VolumetricLight component to force a refresh at any time.

Note: Enabling Shadow Occlusion automatically adds a VolumetricLightsDepthRenderer to your URP Asset’s Renderer List. It is used only by a hidden shadow camera and does not affect your main camera. See Setup — Behind the scenes for details.

Other Settings

Parameter	Description	Default
Use Custom Size	Overrides the Unity light’s range or size for the volumetric effect only.	Off
Use Custom Bounds	Clips the volumetric effect to a custom box. Handles appear in the Scene view for adjustment.	Off
Auto Toggle	Distance-based LOD: dims and deactivates the effect beyond configurable distances.	Off
Distance Start Dimming	Distance at which the effect begins fading out.	70
Distance Deactivation	Distance at which the effect is fully disabled.	100

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