Rendering Debug View

Rendering Debug View

Note: The built-in rendering debugging feature is only available for materials using the Surface Shader framework**.

By selecting the corresponding debug mode in the upper-right corner of the scene preview window in the editor, you can view the model, materials, lighting and other computational data on the same screen, and quickly locate the problem when the rendering effect is abnormal.

To facilitate pixel-by-pixel comparison, we use full-screen debugging instead of picture-in-picture display, which allows us to quickly switch between different data in the same screen to locate rendering errors, and to use the color picker to explore the pixel-specific values.

In addition, Surface Shader has a built-in Irrational Number Visualization feature, so once some pixels appear to have abnormal Red(255, 0, 51) and Green(0, 255, 51) alternately blink, then the rendering calculation of these pixels appears irrational, please use the single debug mode to check the model tangent or other related data.

The rendering debugging functions are subdivided into the following three categories.

1. Common Options

Debugging options that are in effect in either single or combined mode, including:

Name	Function	Debugging Tips
Lighting with Base Color	Check to show normal material illumination, check off to show the effect of white mold pure illumination.	You can see the effect of AO, GI and other indirect light related effects more obviously.
CSM Layer Coloration	Cascading shadows are stained layer by layer from near to far, distributed as reddish, greenish, bluish, and yellowish, with no staining in areas beyond the shadows.	Allows you to view and confirm the fineness of the scene shadows. If three or four layers accounted for too little shading is too fine, should increase the shading visible distance. If the ratio of one or two layers is too small, it means that the shadows are too coarse and the visible distance of shadows should be reduced.

2. Single mode

The debugging focus is on a particular piece of data that needs to be tested, and the entire scenario visualizes this data output.

The debuggable data includes four major categories.

I. Primitive Model Info

Name	Function	Description and debugging tips	Dependencies
Vertex Colors	Vertex Colors		Must check USE VERTEX COLOR in material
World Normal	World Normal
World Tangent	World Tangent	If there are irrational numbers or unusual lighting effects in the calculation you can focus on checking here, if it is black then the model tangent is not turned on but normal mapping or anisotropy is turned on.	Exclusion cannot be selected in the model’s tangent settings Must have USE NORMAL MAP or IS ANISOTROPY checked in the material
World Position	Visualize vertex coordinates (no scaling)	RGB channels display the XYZ axis coordinate data. You can judge the difference of world space axis by color, and the model size by light and dark.
Mirrored Normal	Show normal map flip reuse markers	To improve normal map utilization, some symmetric models (e.g., faces) will only bake half of the normals and reuse the data in the normal map using mirror markers for the other half. If the value of this marker does not change at all on the model, it may cause the normals of the other half of the model to show unusual effects such as bump flip.	Must check USE NORMAL MAP in the material
Front Face Coloration	Display front or back faces	With the default single-sided model, the normals are not automatically distinguished and the light and dark seen on the front and back sides of the model are the same. When a single-sided model uses a double-sided material, it automatically distinguishes between the front and back normals, and the light and dark seen on the front and back sides of the model are different. The mark is white for the front side of the model and black for the reverse side. It can be used to check the light and darkness of the single-sided model.
UV0	Display the First UV
UV1	Display the second UV		Must be checked in the material HAS SECOND UV
Lighting MAP UV	Display the lighting mAP UV	If the light mapping effect is not correct, you can turn on this option and compare the general area of the light mapping to check the error.	Must bake scenes
Projection Depth Z	Display (0-1 non-linear variation) depth	Too far away of the far clip plane will result in a large depth value in the near field.
Linear Depth W	Display (0-1 linear variation) depth	Too far away of the far clip plane will result in a large depth value in the near field

II. Primary Material Info

Name	Function	Description and debugging tips	Dependencies
World Space Pixel Normals		You can compare with the corresponding vertex data to see if the effect of normal mapping is correct
World Space Pixel Tangent/Binormals		Can compare with corresponding vertex data to see if normal mapping affects it correctly	Cannot be selected for exclusion in the model’s tangent settings Must have USE NORMAL MAP or IS ANISOTROPY checked in the material
Base Color
Diffuse Color	Base colors affecting diffuse illumination calculated from natural colors and other material data
Specular Color	The base color affecting specular reflective lighting calculated from intrinsic color and other material data
Opacity	Smaller means more transparent		Must have Alpha Blend enabled in the material
Metallic
Roughness
Specular Intensity	Display the multiplication of non-metallic reference mirror reflectance F0	If the specular is black, please check if this field is set to 0.

III. Lighting Info

Name	Function	Dependencies
Direct Diffuse
Direct Specular
Direct Lighting	Direct Diffuse + Direct Specular
Ambient Diffuse
Ambient Specular
Ambient Lighting	Ambient Diffuse + Ambient Specular
Emissive	Display the emissive in the material
Light Map	Display baked lightmap RGB colors	Must bake scenes
Shadows	Show shadows of directional light, spot light, point light	Shadows must be enabled in the scene’s Inspector panel and light sources, and objects enabled to receive shadows
Ambient Occlusion	Show the color of AO map in the material and real-time AO

IV. Misc Info

Name	Function	Description and debugging tips	Dependencies
Fog	Display the fog effect factor, the larger it is, the denser the fog is		Fog effect must be enabled in the scene’s Inspector panel

3. Render Composite Options

The debugging focus is on the overall rendering performance, and each module can be blocked or turned on, with modules unrelated to each other, to see how different modules affect each other’s rendering effects.

Single mode has higher priority than the composite mode, If you want to use the composite mode, you must check No single mode.

Including:

Name	Function	Description and debugging tips	Category
Direct Diffuse	Enable/Disable Direct Light Diffuse	Affect Directional, Spot, and Point Light	Lighting
Direct Specular	Enable/Disable Direct Light Specular Reflection	Affect Directional, Spot, and Point Light	Lighting
Ambient Diffuse	Enable/Disable Ambient Light Diffuse	Influence Skylight	Lighting
Ambient Specular	Enable/Disable Ambient Light Specular Reflection	Influence Skylight	Lighting
Emissive	Enable/Disable Emissive	If some objects are too bright or exposed, try to turn off this option is not set in the material unnecessary self-illumination	Lighting
Light Map	Enable/Disable Baking Light	Affect Baking	Light
Shadows	Enable/Disable Direct Light Shadows	Affect Live Directional Light / Spot Light / Spot Light Shadows and Baked Directional Light Shadows	Lighting
Ambient Occlusion	Enable/Disable Ambient Occlusion	Influence Skylight	Light
Normal Map	Enable/Disable Normal Map	If the lighting is unusually scattered, try turning this option off to see if the normal map is scrambling at the wrong intensity. If the lighting effect is wrong or appears irrational, try turning this option off to see if the model is not tangential	Materials
Fog	Enable/Disable fog effect	If the scene color is abnormally gray, try turning off this option to see if the fog parameter is not set properly	Environment
Tone Mapping	Enable/Disable Tone Mapping	If the scene color is too different from the original material, try to turn off this option to see if it is normal, indicating that UseHDR should not be checked in the scene panel	Color Space
Gamma Correction	Enable/Disable Gamma Correction	If the scene is unusually colorful and dark, try turning off this option to see if it is normal, indicating that the mapping resources may have been gamma corrected multiple times	Color Space

4. Advanced Usage

Manual inserting vertex shader outputs and fragment shader inputs: with the new varying property introduced in the Surface Shader framework, vertex shader outputs and fragment shader inputs can be accessed in particular Surface Functions.
Surface Shader and legacy shader codes can be used in the same render loop as long as the varying vertex data are kept consistent between the two.

Public function libraries

The library headers can be found under assets -> internal -> chunks -> common folder in different categories.

The functions in the library do not depend on any internal data (engine related uniform, mapping, etc.) and can be used directly as tool functions.

Surface already automatically contains common public function headers internally, which can be classified according to type as:

Folder Name	Function Usage
color	color-related functions (color space, tonemapping, etc.)
data	Data-related functions (compression and decompression, etc.)
debug	Debug View-related functions
effect	Scene effect-related functions (water, fog, etc.)
lighting	lighting-related features (brdf, bsdf, attenuation, baking, etc.)
math	math library (coordinate transformation, numerical determination and operation, etc.)
mesh	model-related functions (material conversion, model animation, etc.)
shadow	shadow-related functions (pcf, hcs, etc.)
texture	mapping-related functions (sampling, mip calculation, etc.)