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Built-in (BRP) URP HDRP

Overview

One click turns your URP or HDRP game into any retro era — 1-bit, 8-bit, 16-bit, PS1, N64, VHS. Press Make it Retro in Retro Studio, pick an era, and the scene in front of you is that era.

It is not a pixelate filter. Pixel Eras renders your scene at a true low resolution, reduces it to real hardware palettes with ordered dithering, adds one-pixel outlines and shows it on a CRT, a VHS tape or a handheld LCD — while your UI stays sharp. In URP the scene itself renders at the game's resolution, so the retro look often costs less than no effect at all.

Twenty eras ship ready to use: 1-bit computers, 4-shade handhelds, CGA, EGA and VGA PCs, 8-bit and 16-bit consoles, PS1, N64, an arcade CRT, a haunted VHS tape and HD pixel art. Switch them at runtime or crossfade between them from one line of code — a flashback, a dream sequence, a retro mode in the options menu.

Pixels hold still. The Smooth Pixel Camera keeps every pixel stable on orthographic cameras and holds turning and moving still on perspective ones, so a low-resolution picture does not shimmer as the camera follows the player. Stable Dither does the same for the dither pattern.

The look goes past post-processing. Retro Lit, Unlit and Terrain shaders for URP and HDRP add vertex snapping, affine textures, three-point (N64) filtering and flat light bands; a one-click converter turns URP, HDRP and Built-in materials into them. Pixel Eras Light adds flicker, candle, torch, fluorescent and strobe patterns, flat light rings and pixel halos, and Animators, objects and particles can move in whole frames, the way sprites did.

Make it yours. Create your own style from any era and tune every setting in Retro Studio, live in the Game view: resolution, palette, colour depth, dither, pixel edges, fog, CRT, VHS, composite video and LCD. Doctor checks the project and fixes what would spoil the picture in one click, and a check before every build catches what would make the player look different from the Editor.

One package serves URP and HDRP on Unity 6: Render Graph, the Universal and 2D Renderer, Forward, Forward+ and Deferred. On import it detects the installed pipeline and compiles only its code and shader passes.

Key features

  • 20 built-in eras, from 1-bit to 128-bit, with runtime switching and crossfades.
  • True low-resolution rendering by Target Height, Pixel Scale or Fixed Resolution — the same picture for every player.
  • Pixel Perfect, Pixel Perfect Fill and Sharp Fill scaling; 2×2 supersampling; a stepped View Frame Rate.
  • Smooth Pixel Camera for orthographic and perspective cameras.
  • 40 palettes, plus import of .hex, .gpl and .pal files (Lospec, GIMP, Aseprite) or any image; colour depth from 1 to 8 bits per channel.
  • Bayer 2×2, 4×4 and 8×8, blue-noise and custom dithering with strength, threshold and fade; Stable Dither keeps the pattern still while the camera moves.
  • Pixel outlines and ridge highlights — inside or outside the silhouette, with fade, and through transparent surfaces.
  • Retro fog: linear, exponential and exponential², dithered bands, ground fog and drift; draw distance with whole polygons popping in.
  • CRT (curvature, scanlines, phosphor masks, glow), VHS (jitter, noise, colour bleed, tracking), composite video and handheld LCD (pixel grid, ghosting).
  • Retro Lit, Unlit and Terrain shaders for URP and HDRP: vertex snap, affine mapping, three-point filtering, light bands and light rings — plus 7 Shader Graph sub graphs and a URP 2D Sprite graph.
  • One-click converter for URP, HDRP and Built-in materials.
  • Pixel Eras Light: 8 patterns, era shadows and palette colours, pixel halos.
  • Stepped animation and motion for Animators, transforms and particles, on one clock with the camera.
  • Retro Studio: Make it Retro, era gallery, live Look editor, Doctor with one-click fixes and a pre-build check.
  • Pixel-perfect UI scaler, texture import rules, Texture Cruncher and a full scripting API.
  • Works with the pipeline's own post-processing; a Volume override for zones and blends.

What's included

  • 20 eras and 40 palettes, ready to use and to copy into your own styles.
  • 9 shaders and 1 Shader Graph (URP_RETRO Lit, Unlit, Terrain and Sprite; HDRP_RETRO Lit, Unlit and Terrain; the Uber, Present and Halo passes), and 7 Shader Graph sub graphs.
  • 5 components — Pixel Eras Camera, Light, Animation, Stepped Motion and Canvas Scaler — and the Pixel Eras Look Volume override.
  • Retro Studio and Doctor in the Editor.
  • A complete playable demo — a survival shooter in a graveyard — with a pause menu over every setting, for URP and HDRP. Safe to delete.
  • 3 CC0 pixel fonts; demo models by Kenney (CC0), demo sounds from freesound.org (CC0).
  • Offline HTML documentation: a quick start, workflows, the scripting API and a full parameter reference.
  • Full C# and HLSL source, License.txt and Third-Party Notices.txt.

Technical details

Eras20, from 1-bit to 128-bit
Palettes40 · import .hex / .gpl / .pal or an image
Effect stages11 — resolution, grade, colour depth, palette, dither, edges, fog, CRT, VHS, composite, LCD
Shaders9 + 1 Shader Graph, 7 Shader Graph sub graphs · full HLSL source
Components5 + 1 Volume override
Light patterns8
Render pipelinesURP 17+ and HDRP 17+ — one package
URP renderersUniversal (Forward, Forward+, Deferred) and 2D · Render Graph and Compatibility Mode
Colour spaceLinear and Gamma
Allocation0 bytes per frame from Pixel Eras
Demo1 playable scene, URP and HDRP
Documentationoffline HTML, quick start and manual

Requirements

  • Unity 6.0 LTS (6000.0.85f1) or newer.
  • Universal Render Pipeline 17+ (Universal and 2D Renderer; Forward, Forward+, Deferred; Render Graph, and Compatibility Mode on Unity 6.0–6.3) or High Definition Render Pipeline 17+. One package serves both.
  • Linear or Gamma colour space; Enter Play Mode Options supported.
  • The Built-in Render Pipeline and XR are NOT supported. In HDRP, Dynamic Resolution and upscalers (DLSS, FSR) are not supported.

Tags

Shaders VFX Retro Pixel Art PSX PS1 CRT VHS Dithering Palette Post-processing URP HDRP

Version history

v1.0.02026-11-06
  • 20 retro eras for URP and HDRP, with runtime switching and crossfades.
  • True low-resolution rendering, Smooth Pixel Camera and pixel-perfect scaling.
  • 40 palettes, dithering, colour depth, pixel outlines and highlights, retro fog.
  • CRT, VHS, composite video and handheld LCD screens.
  • Retro Lit, Unlit and Terrain shaders and Shader Graph sub graphs.
  • Pixel Eras Light, stepped animation and motion.
  • Retro Studio, Doctor, material converter, playable demo and documentation.

FAQ

Is it just a pixelate filter?
No. A pixelate filter shrinks a finished frame. Pixel Eras renders the scene at the era's own resolution, matches every pixel to a hardware palette with ordered dithering, draws one-pixel outlines at that resolution and only then shows the picture on the screen you chose — a CRT, a VHS tape, composite video or a handheld LCD. The Retro shaders add what post-processing cannot do: vertex wobble, affine texture warp and N64-style filtering.
Do I have to change my materials?
No. The look — resolution, palette, dithering, outlines, fog and screens — works on every material you already have. Vertex snap, affine textures, three-point filtering and light bands live in the Retro shaders; the material converter turns URP, HDRP and Built-in materials into them in one click, and you can convert only the objects that need them.
Does my UI stay sharp?
Yes. The UI is drawn at the screen's resolution over the retro picture, so text and buttons stay crisp. Pixel Eras Canvas Scaler sizes the canvas in whole game pixels when you want the UI to match the era.
Can I switch eras at runtime?
Yes. Set an era on the camera, or call TransitionTo(era, seconds) to crossfade: numbers blend, and palettes, switches and resolution change halfway. Several cameras can each show their own era, and a Volume override blends the look by zone.
Can I make my own era?
Yes. In Retro Studio, New style copies any built-in era into your project, and every setting is edited live in the Game view. Built-in eras stay untouched, so a package update never overwrites your work.
How expensive is it?
In URP the scene itself renders at the game's resolution, so the retro look often costs less than rendering without it. Pixel Eras allocates nothing per frame, and the screen effects run in one extra full-resolution pass.
URP and HDRP — is that two packages?
One. On import Pixel Eras detects the installed pipeline and compiles only its code and shader passes. The Retro shaders come in twin families, URP_RETRO and HDRP_RETRO, and materials switch to the project's pipeline by themselves.
Can I try it before buying?
Yes — the live WebGL demo is the full package running in your browser: a survival shooter with a pause menu over every setting of every era. The documentation is readable online too.
What is the licence on the demo art?
The pixel fonts and the demo models are by Kenney, the demo sounds and music are from freesound.org; all of it is CC0 1.0 (public domain). Details are in Third-Party Notices.txt in the package.
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