Rendering Options

The Rendering Options block exposes the low-level render-state knobs you would otherwise need a custom shader to tweak: cull mode, ZWrite, depth bias, render queue, and stencil. It is where you fix sorting issues, force two-sided foliage, or carve a stencil mask for the See-Through feature.

When to use it

Two-sided foliage and cloth — set the cull mode to Off.
Z-fighting decals — apply a small negative depth bias.
Sort ordering — nudge the render queue by plus or minus 50 to break ties.
See-Through stencil masking — write a stencil ref the masked material reads.

When not to touch this

If you are not seeing a specific visual bug, leave Rendering Options at its defaults. Wrong queue or ZWrite values create subtle errors that are hard to diagnose later.

How it works

Rendering Options exposes each setting as a material override and feeds it into the SubShader pass tags through material property drawers. Most values map 1:1 to Unity’s render-state API, so anything you would write in an HLSL block is reachable from the inspector.

Properties

Inspector label	Shader property	Type	Default	Description
Cull Mode	_CullMode	Enum	Back	Off, Front, or Back. Off renders two-sided.
ZWrite	_ZWrite	Enum	On	Force-override Z write; auto by blend mode otherwise.
ZTest	_ZTest	Enum	LEqual	Depth test op. Set Always for see-through silhouettes.
Queue Offset	_QueueOffset	Int (-200–200)	0	Added to the auto queue (2000 Opaque / 3000 Transparent).
Offset Factor	_OffsetFactor	Float	0	Depth bias factor for decals.
Offset Units	_OffsetUnits	Float	0	Depth bias constant for decals.
Stencil Ref	_StencilRef	Int (0–255)	0	Stencil reference value.
Stencil Comp	_StencilComp	Enum	Always	Stencil compare op.
Stencil Op	_StencilOp	Enum	Keep	Stencil pass op.

Usage

Identify the visual symptom: flicker means Z-fighting, missing back faces means cull, popping means queue order.
Apply the minimum override that fixes it; the defaults are correct for most materials.
For decals, set Offset Factor to -1 and Offset Units to -1 to pull them off the surface.
For stencil masking, set Stencil Ref to 1 and Stencil Op to Replace on the writer, and Stencil Comp to Equal on the reader.


material.SetInt("_CullMode", 0);          // Off → two-sided
material.SetInt("_QueueOffset", 50);      // Push behind other transparents
material.SetFloat("_OffsetUnits", -1f);   // Decal Z bias

Tips & gotchas

ZWrite Off with the Opaque queue is a classic mistake — the surface will not sort correctly. Flip the queue or turn ZWrite back on.
Negative queue offsets can pull a transparent in front of the skybox; cap them at plus or minus 200.
Depth bias is hardware-dependent — a value that works on PC may be too weak on Adreno mobile GPUs.
Stencil ref 0 is reserved in many post-FX stacks (outline, fog). Start your custom values at 1.

Surface Settings — blend mode drives the default queue.
See-Through — uses stencil to mask blocked silhouettes.
Outline — the inverted-hull pass respects the cull mode.
Dither Transparency — sort-free alternative to queue tweaking.