Rendering - Render Zones

Render Zones allow you to create areas in the scene which control the rendering of various components when a camera is inside of it.

There are three important things to consider with render zones:

They are not axis aligned (they can’t be rotated)
They can’t be scaled. The size setting needs to be set. You can use the gizmos provided in the scene view to do this.
They are counter based. If a players camera is inside of a zone, the render zones objects become visible for both players in splitscreen. This does not apply in online multiplayer.

Because render zones are counter based, they can’t be used for non-euclidean environment design if splitscreen functionality is a concern.

Control Over & Render Management

Render Zones support proxy setups. A Proxy Render Zone holds references to common objects which other render zones can then hook into for render control.

When a render zone has a size of zero or has its Manage Rendering option disabled, it will no longer actively toggle objects and will need to be triggered by the render events of other zones to work.

Major Zones

When multiple render zones have Is Major Render Zone enabled, they are treated as a group where only one per camera can be actively rendering its objects at any given time. If a camera is inside of a zone, that zone becomes active. If a camera isn’t inside of a major zone, the closest major zone to the camera becomes the active zone.

Autodetection

Objects can be automatically found when the track starts, be baked in the editor, or both. This works by determining what’s inside of the render zones bounds and adding it to the objects list.

Settings

Editor Settings

Draw Handles: Whether the handles that allow you to view the volume and quickly click into the render zone using the scene view are drawn.

Draw Connections: Whether the render zone’s Control Over and object connections are visualized.

Draw Highlights: Whether connected target and pre-selection highlights are drawn.

Interactive Edit: Toggles the ability to click on objects in the scene view to add and remove them from a render zone. Pressing escape when using interactive edit mode will exit the mode and return control to Unity.

Objects

Control Over: A list of render zones that the render zone will control the rendering of. Make sure the targets in this list have their rendering management disabled first.

Autodetect

Auto Detect Objects: Whether objects will be auto-detected when the track starts. Bake Autodetection: Runs auto-detect and bakes the discovered objects into the render zones object list. Add From Self: Looks for target objects on the render zone itself.

Proxy Render Zone

Add Component Path: BallisticNG -> Rendering -> Render Zones -> Proxy Render Zone

This is the base render zone. It doesn’t support any types of objects but can send out control signals to other render zones in its Control Over list.

Mesh Render Zone

Add Component Path: BallisticNG -> Rendering -> Render Zones -> Mesh Render Zone

Manages the rendering of MeshRenderer components. When interactive edit is enabled, meshes under the cursor will be highlighted orange and you can left click on them to add/remove them from the objects list.

Settings

Objects

Mesh Renderers: The object list of mesh renderers that the render zone will manage.

Autodetect

Detect By Intersect: When enabled, auto-detection of meshes will use their bounding box to determine if its volume intersects with the render zone instead of just its pivot point.

Billboard Sprite Render Zone

Add Component Path: BallisticNG -> Rendering -> Render Zones -> Billboard Sprite Render Zone

Manages the rendering of Billboard Sprite components. When interactive edit is enabled, sprites under the cursor will be given a target gizmo to signify that they can be added or removed from the objects list.

Sprites: The object list of sprites that the render zone will manage.

Particle Render Zone

Add Component Path: BallisticNG -> Rendering -> Render Zones -> Particle Render Zone

Manages the rendering of particle systems. When interactive edit is enabled, particle systems under the cursor will be given a target gizmo to signify that they can be added or removed from the objects list.

Particles: The object list of particle system render settings the render zone will manage.

System: The particle system to manage. Disable Renderer: Particles won’t render when the render zone is inactive, but will still simulate. Disable Emission: Particles will stop emimiting when the render zone is inactive. Any active particles will simulate for the remainder of their lifetime. Pause EmissioN: Particle simulation will be pause when the render zone is inactive.

Projector Render Zone

Add Component Path: BallisticNG -> Rendering -> Render Zones -> Projector Render Zone

Manages the rendering of projectors. When interactive edit is enabled, projectors under the cursor will be given a target gizmo to signify that they can be added or removed from the objects list.

Projectors: The object list of projectors the render zone will manage.