Post Processing Effects: Chromatic Aberration

1. Post Processing Effects: Chromatic Aberration

This tutorial has been verified using Unity 2019 LTS and Post-Processing 2.3.0

Chromatic Aberration makes your scene appear as though it were recorded through a lens that is unable to converge light at the edges. This is common in low-end lenses, and is a quick and easy effective way to give your scene that “shot on glass” look.

2. Adding Chromatic Aberration

1. Select a Post-process Volume, click Add effect… in the Inspector, and select Unity > Chromatic Aberration (Figure 01).

Alt text: Selecting Chromatic Aberration from the Unity set of Post-process Effect Overrides.

3. Chromatic Aberration Properties

Alt text: Chromatic Aberration properties in the Inspector, with settings shown for the image shown later.

Spectral LUT - A Spectral lookup table (LUT) is an optional texture used to shift the hue of the effect, without affecting the rest of the scene. Included with the Post Processing V2 Package is a set of four 3x1 textures (Figure 03).

Alt text: A set of example spectral LUTs, included with the Post Processing V2 Package.

Intensity - Controls the strength of the effect, with stronger blurring toward the edges of the frame.

Fast Mode - Enables a quicker, but lower fidelity, version of the effect that leaves Scene geometry unblurred, but still applies the color fringing. Compare the edges of the cube closest to the edge of the frame between the next two images (Figures 04-05).

Alt text: Chromatic Aberration, with Fast Mode enabled.

Alt text: Chromatic Aberration effect using the green and purple spectral LUT included with the Post Processing V2 Package, with Intensity set to 1 and Fast Mode disabled.

4. Next Steps

In this tutorial, you learned how to apply Chromatic Aberration to a Scene. Chromatic Aberration is a simple but effective way to give the impression that your scene is being viewed through a physical camera lens. Try creating your own Spectral LUTs with your favorite colors, or exploring non-cinematic uses of Chromatic Aberration.