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wtf is nade-unity-virtual-geometry-engine-demo?

unfinished-b/nade-unity-virtual-geometry-engine-demo — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

7C#Audience · developerComplexity · 5/5Setup · moderate

TL;DR

A teaching demo of NADE, a Unity 6 HDRP rendering system that groups scene geometry into clusters to draw complex scenes faster.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((NADE demo))
    What it does
      Clusters scene geometry
      Culls hidden geometry
      Streams geometry pages
    How to use it
      Add NADE component
      Press Play to snapshot
      Stop Play to edit geometry
    Tech stack
      Unity HDRP
      DirectX 12
      C sharp
    Design notes
      Cached shadow approach
      Skips voxelised foliage
      Measured frame times

Code map

Detail Auto

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filefunction / class

Why would anyone build with this?

REASON 1

Add the NADE component to a Unity HDRP scene to see cluster based geometry rendering in action.

REASON 2

Study the README's measured trade offs to learn how shadow caching can replace a heavier virtual shadow map technique.

REASON 3

Use the Debug Vis cluster color and live status panel to inspect how many triangles and clusters NADE draws per frame.

REASON 4

Reference this demo's design decisions as a case study when building a custom rendering optimization in Unity.

What's in the stack?

C#UnityHDRPDirectX 12

How it stacks up

unfinished-b/nade-unity-virtual-geometry-engine-demod2phap/happlaboxdrwuu/playsmart-unity-uitoolkit-extensions
Stars777
LanguageC#C#C#
Last pushed2023-03-14
MaintenanceDormant
Setup difficultymoderateeasyeasy
Complexity5/52/52/5
Audiencedevelopergeneraldeveloper

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you spin it up?

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

Requires Unity 6.2 with HDRP and DX12, plus a compatible test scene such as the linked Unity HDRP water scenes.

Wtf does this do

This repository is a smaller, teaching focused demo version of NADE, a rendering system for the Unity 6 game engine that helps games draw very detailed 3D scenes more efficiently. It is built for Unity's HDRP graphics pipeline running on DX12, and is meant to be studied and learned from rather than used as a finished product, since a full production version exists separately. Games with lots of highly detailed geometry can slow down because the graphics card has to process every tiny triangle of every object, even ones that are far away or partly hidden. NADE addresses this by grouping a scene's geometry into clusters, choosing simpler versions of distant or hidden clusters automatically, and streaming geometry in pages so only what is needed loads into memory. It also handles shadows and hides geometry the camera cannot see, all in a way designed to keep the graphics card, rather than the CPU, doing the heavy lifting. To try it, you add an empty object to a Unity scene, attach the NADE component to it, click a button in its inspector to fix a required import setting, and press Play, which takes a snapshot of the scene's geometry and starts rendering it through NADE's pipeline instead of Unity's normal renderers. Because that snapshot is fixed for the length of a Play session, any edits to captured geometry only take effect after stopping and restarting Play, though lights, effects, and non captured objects can still be changed live. The README is upfront about what this demo version leaves out compared to the full project, including some shadow and lighting integration details, an editor menu, and support for newer graphics hardware features that Unity does not expose through its public tools. It also documents specific measured trade offs the author made, such as choosing a cached shadow update approach that costs a fraction of a millisecond per frame instead of a heavier virtual shadow map technique, with the reasoning and measurements included directly in the README. This project is aimed at Unity developers and graphics programmers who want to study how a cluster based rendering system can be built inside Unity's existing engine.

Yoink these prompts

Prompt 1
Explain how NADE's cluster LOD system reduces the number of triangles drawn compared to Unity's standard renderers.
Prompt 2
Walk me through adding the NADE component to a Unity scene and running it in Play mode.
Prompt 3
Explain why the README says voxelised foliage was not worth building for this project.
Prompt 4
Summarize what features this demo build of NADE leaves out compared to the full production version.
Prompt 5
Explain the difference between edit mode and Play mode when NADE has captured a scene's geometry.

Frequently asked questions

wtf is nade-unity-virtual-geometry-engine-demo?

A teaching demo of NADE, a Unity 6 HDRP rendering system that groups scene geometry into clusters to draw complex scenes faster.

What language is nade-unity-virtual-geometry-engine-demo written in?

Mainly C#. The stack also includes C#, Unity, HDRP.

How hard is nade-unity-virtual-geometry-engine-demo to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated moderate, with roughly 30min to a first successful run.

Who is nade-unity-virtual-geometry-engine-demo for?

Mainly developer.

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