How to Use Post Processing in Unity

Post Processing is adding a filter(s) to your Game Scene and can really give your game a nice polish look. In this article, we are going talk about how to setup the Post Processing System in Unity and from there you can explore and experiment with all the filters Unity has to offer (end of ad).

First, we need to add the Post Processor Stack from the Package Manager. The Package Manager is a collection of Unity products, which will give you add-ons to use.

Find the Post Processing stack and download. This may take some time.

We will now add a GameObject to the scene that will act as a layer and which we will apply the Post Processing Layer. Let’s rename the GameObect to ‘Post Process Volume’ and we will add a Post-Processing Volume component to it. If we didn’t download the Post Processing Stack, these components wouldn’t be available.

Once the Volume is added, we have bool of Is Global which allows you to either apply more than one filter to a game scene (false). For example, you may have a village that has a water area, so you will have a filter when the camera is on land and another it is in the water. Or to the whole scene (true), which applies the filter to the whole scene. Also, we need to create a Profile and can easily do this by selecting New and it will create one.

Next, we will need to create and add a new Layer (‘Post Processing’) to our Post Process Volume which is need when we attach this to the camera.

Let’s add the Post Processing Volume to the Camera, and to do this we will add Post-Process Layer to the Camera.

In the Post-Process Layer, we will add the Main Camera and select the Post Processing Layer we created on the Post Process Volume.

Now the fun part! Let’s head back to the Post Process Volume to select Add effect to pull a Unity menu of different effects you can use. There are a lot of effects Unity offers that will not be covered in this article, but the two I used in my game are Bloom and Color Grading. The Bloom Effect allows you to manipulate the glow colors emits and Color Grading gives you the ability to adjust the color levels in the scene.