Depth Coloring

Depth Coloring samples the scene depth behind a transparent surface and remaps it into a color gradient — the standard way to fake underwater absorption, atmospheric haze, and stylized volumetrics from a single quad or water mesh.

When to use it

Water surfaces — a shallow-to-deep tint without volumetric tracing.
Atmospheric haze — fade distant geometry behind a transparent shell.
Stylized fog volumes — color-graded fog cards.
Sci-fi membranes — surfaces that fade as objects pass through them.

Requires the URP depth texture

Depth Coloring samples _CameraDepthTexture. Enable Depth Texture on the URP Asset and confirm your camera generates it. Without that flag the depth term reads zero and the gradient never evaluates.

How it works

For each pixel the shader samples the scene depth (the opaque geometry behind the surface), subtracts the surface’s own depth, normalizes by _DepthRange, and uses the result as a lerp factor between _ShallowColor and _DeepColor. An exponential falloff curve approximates Beer-Lambert absorption.

Properties

Inspector label	Shader property	Type	Default	Description
Shallow Color	_ShallowColor	Color	RGBA(0.3, 0.7, 0.9, 0.4)	Tint at zero depth; alpha drives the fade-in.
Deep Color	_DeepColor	Color	RGBA(0.05, 0.10, 0.20, 1.0)	Tint at maximum depth.
Depth Range	_DepthRange	Float (0–100)	10.0	World-space distance for the full gradient.
Falloff	_DepthFalloff	Enum	Exponential	Linear or Exponential gradient curve.
Depth Bias	_DepthBias	Float (-1–1)	0.0	Offsets the gradient start; negative starts earlier.
Intensity	_DepthFogIntensity	Float (0–1)	1.0	Blend amount against the lit surface.

Usage

Enable Depth Texture on your URP Asset.
Switch the material to Transparent and set the queue to 3000 or higher.
Pick a Shallow / Deep pair appropriate to your water or fog.
Tune Depth Range in world units to match the typical depth of the volume.


material.SetColor("_ShallowColor", new Color(0.40f, 0.80f, 0.85f, 0.35f));
material.SetColor("_DeepColor",    new Color(0.05f, 0.12f, 0.25f, 1.00f));
material.SetFloat("_DepthRange", 8f);

Tips & gotchas

The depth texture only contains opaque geometry, so two depth-colored surfaces cannot see each other.
MSAA depth sampling is unreliable on some Android GPUs; Genesis falls back to a resolve copy, which carries a slight cost.
Exponential (Beer-Lambert) reads more believably for water; Linear is fine for sci-fi membranes.
The depth texture is per-eye in URP 12+, so single-pass stereo needs no code change.

Stylized Fog — global stylized fog.
Surface Settings — must be Transparent.
Height Gradient — world-Y twin for environment art.
Reflection & Refraction — pair for a full water look.