Unity URP: A Beginner’s Guide to Setting Up Your Project

Ready to set up Unity URP in your project? This guide covers everything you need to know for success. Let’s get started! Low Poly Ultimate Pack - Unity Asset Store ► https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/props/low-poly-ultimate-pack-54733?aid=1101lfDIN My discord link ► https://discord.gg/DgUdND

There are two ways to get a Unity project onto the Universal Render Pipeline: start with a URP template, or convert an existing built-in render pipeline project. The first is trivial, the second takes about five minutes once you know the three steps. This guide covers both, plus the pink-material problem that catches everyone converting an existing project.

What URP is and why you'd use it URP stands for Universal Render Pipeline, and the RP part is the important bit — it's a scriptable render pipeline, meaning you get direct control over what happens during rendering rather than accepting whatever the built-in pipeline does. The "universal" half refers to its target range: URP is designed to output to mobile, desktop, console, and VR from the same project. There are tradeoffs against the built-in pipeline and against HDRP, so it isn't automatically the right choice, but for cross-platform work it usually is.

The easy way — start from a template In Unity Hub, create a new project and look at the template list. Several are already URP-based: 2D URP, 3D URP, and a 3D sample scene URP example among them. Pick one and everything is configured before you write a line of code. If you know you want URP, this is the path.

Step 1 of conversion — install the package For a project already running the built-in pipeline, open Window, Package Manager and make sure the source is set to Unity Registry. Search for "universal" and Universal RP appears in the list. Install it. This can take a few minutes.

Step 2 — create the pipeline asset Installing the package isn't enough; Unity still needs an asset describing how to render. Create a folder called Settings to keep things tidy, then right-click inside it and go to Create. Scroll to the very bottom of the menu, where Rendering lives, and choose to create a URP asset with a universal renderer. This produces two files — the Universal Render Pipeline Asset itself and its renderer.

Step 3 — tell Unity to use it Go to Edit, Project Settings, Graphics. At the top you'll see Render Pipeline Settings asking for a specific asset. Assign the URP asset you just created. Unity warns that you're changing the rendering system and asks whether to continue — that's expected, so proceed. The project is now on URP.

Fixing the pink materials At this point every material in the scene turns bright magenta. Nothing is broken. Pink means Unity can't find a valid shader, and your existing materials still reference built-in pipeline shaders that don't exist under URP. The fix is a bulk conversion. Navigate to the folder containing your materials — in this case the Low Poly Ultimate Pack's materials folder — and select all of them. Then go to Edit, Rendering, Materials, and choose Convert Selected Built-in Materials to URP. Confirm the upgrade prompt.

The materials briefly turn blue while Unity recompiles the shaders, then the scene returns to looking the way it did before, now rendering through URP. If some assets are still pink afterward, it's because their materials live in a folder you didn't include in the selection — repeat the conversion on those.