Drop-In Sky & Weather — Realistic URP System

A physically based sky for Unity URP, with volumetric clouds, fog and weather.

Sky
Weather
Clouds
URP
Lighting

Coming soon to the Asset StoreDocumentation PDF

The sun setting over a salt lake, its glint on the water between tufa towers, warm clouds above

Overview

Drop-In Sky & Weather gives the Universal Render Pipeline a physically based sky, volumetric clouds and weather, in one component. Add it to a scene and it becomes the skybox and lights the scene: there is no renderer feature to add and nothing to bake.

The sky's colours come from the air itself, lit by the sun and the moon: a blue day, orange and red sunsets, the blue hour, then a night with the real stars and Milky Way where they are at your latitude and date. Volumetric clouds drift and change shape with the wind, cast their shadows on the scene and let shafts of light through, and the same air fogs the scene.

Rain and snow fall from the clouds and stop under roofs, lightning strikes, and the ground gets wet or white; your Shader Graph materials can show it. Presets blend from clear to stormy, a weather cycle changes the weather by itself, and a clock driven by the network or Timeline gives every player and every take the same sky.

Key features

Physically based atmosphere: sunsets, twilight and the blue hour follow the sun
Volumetric clouds with storm anvils, high cirrus with halos and sun dogs, cloud areas for art direction
Cloud shadows, light shafts and atmospheric fog with mist
Scene lighting: ambient light, reflections and the sun follow the sky every frame
Real sun, moon, stars and Milky Way; eclipses, aurora, shooting stars, satellites and airplanes
Rain and snow that stop under roofs, rain curtains and rainbows, lightning and thunder
Wet and snowy materials through Shader Graph sub graphs
Nine presets, blending, a weather cycle, events, save and load
Deterministic clock for multiplayer and Timeline tracks, recording mode for clean videos
HDRI export, PC VR, full C# and HLSL source

Good to know

URP only, on platforms with compute shaders: mobile and WebGL are not supported in this version. Cameras stay below the clouds. One sky per scene. Rain stops under colliders only. No thunder sounds are included.

Technical details

Unity	6000.3 (Unity 6.3 LTS) or newer; tested with 6000.3.25f1
Render pipeline	URP 17 or newer; tested with URP 17.3, Forward and Forward+. Built-in and HDRP are not supported.
Platforms	Platforms with compute shaders; tested on Windows with Direct3D 12. PC VR. Mobile and WebGL are not supported in this version.
Setup	One component: no renderer feature. Turn on Light Cookies in the URP asset for the clouds' shadows.
Performance	About 1.2 to 3.4 ms of GPU time at 1080p on an RTX 5080 (Low to High), clouds, fog, lighting and far shadows included; about 0.2 ms of CPU
Included	Shaders and compute shaders, 2 Shader Graph sub graphs, 9 presets, night sky maps, a demo park of 12 × 8 km

Help

Start with the documentation. Still stuck? Write to support@havoila.com with your Unity and URP versions and a screenshot.

Gallery

Morning mist glowing in a sunlit valley, with trees and deer in the haze — Morning mist — Mist pools in the valley and glows

Sunbeams through the mist between pines, a log cabin on a shaded slope — Light shafts — God rays through the mist

Cumulus and cirrus over a lake, a lake house and a seaplane at its dock — Fair weather — Cumulus drifting in a deep blue sky

Puffy cumulus clouds over a forested valley and a waterfall — Volumetric clouds — Drift, grow and change shape through the day

The clouds' shadows on a lake and a forested valley, seen from high above — Cloud shadows — Shadows sweep over the land as the clouds go by

A storm over a forested valley, rain falling around a fire lookout tower — Storms — Rain curtains, wind and lightning roll over the valley

Rain on a wet desert highway with puddles, a gas station's signs in the distance — Rain — Splashes, wet asphalt and puddles

A rainbow over a desert road lined with Joshua trees, under broken clouds — Rainbows — Where the low sun meets the rain

Snow falling on a desert of Joshua trees, the ground and a ridge white — Snow — Flakes drift down and settle

A low sun over a lake between mountains, a seaplane on the water — Golden hour — A physically based atmosphere warms the light as the sun goes down

The sun setting into the haze over sand dunes, cirrus glowing above — Sunset — The sun sinks into the haze, cirrus glowing above

Dusk over a desert plain under clouds, the last light fading — Twilight — The afterglow fades and the exposure adapts, as the eyes do

The Milky Way and the stars over a desert ridge with an observatory dome — Night — Real stars, the Milky Way and shooting stars

Green curtains of an aurora over a dark lake and hills — Aurora — Curtains of light over any scene

Moonlit clouds over a campsite with a campfire and tents in the forest — Moonlight — Real moon, all phases, light on clouds