Adding Post Processing to our Prototype

The Unity game engine is a modular game engine. That means that not every conceivable feature Unity can offer is added to every new project.

This is great because it removes bloat for the developer to sort through and reduces file size for the end user.

To add Unity’s Post Processing package to our project, click Window, Package Manager, and select “Unity Registry” from the drop down at the top of the Package Manager window.

Scroll down to Post Processing and hit the Install button at the bottom right of the screen.

Unity will take a few moments to integrate the package into our project, but this shouldn’t take very long.

We’ll create a new empty game object and attach the Post-process Volume component to it.

Now, we need to add a Post-process Layer component to our Main Camera to apply our Post Process Volume.

We need to add a post processing layer.

Post processing literally starts with the word Post for a reason, it’s meant to happen at the end of everything else.

I’ve set the layer to 8, leaving room to add other layers in 6 and 7 should the need arise.

Set the Post Process Volume game object to be on the Post Process layer.

Now let’s add our first effect, Bloom, to our post processing stack.

Go ahead and play with the intensity a bit to get a feel for it.

Now let’s add the Color Grading component to our Post Process Volume game object. Go ahead and click “All”.

There is a warning on our Color Grading component:

“ColorSpace in project settings is set to Gamma, HDR color grading won’t look correct. Switch to Linear or use LDR color grading mode instead.”

Go to Project Settings, Player, and set the Color Space to “Linear” as shown above.

Close out of the Project Settings and Build Settings window.

If we go back to our Post Process Volume game object and look at our Color Grading component, the warning should now be gone.

These are the Post Processing effects and settings I ended up using.

The best way to understand post processing effects is to make a scene you don’t care about and play with them to your hearts content!

Next time we’ll start implementing our game audio!