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Upgrade to Unity 2023.2

Upgrade a project from a 2023.1 version to 2023.2.
Read time 9 minutesLast updated 22 days ago
This page lists changes in Unity 2023.2 which might affect existing projects when you upgrade them from a 2023.1 version to 2023.2.

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Environment lighting: Ambient probe and skybox Reflection Probe are no longer baked by default

Unity’s Progressive Lightmapper no longer bakes the ambient probe and the skybox Reflection Probe by default, and the Recalculate Environment Lighting setting in the Lighting window has been removed.
To avoid a newly created scene having no environment lighting, Unity assigns a default Lighting Data Asset containing environment lighting that matches the default skybox material.
You must select Generate Lighting in the Lighting window in the following cases:
  • To fix the lights in a scene where you rely on the previous automatic baking behavior.
  • To see lighting changes in a new scene if you change the environment lighting settings.
If you rely on the previous automatic baking behavior but you use the default environment lighting settings, Unity upgrades the scene to use the default Lighting Data Asset.

Auto-generated lighting has been removed

The Auto Generate setting in the Lighting window has been removed, and related APIs are now obsolete.
To generate baked lighting for a scene, you can do any of the following:
  • Select Generate Lighting in the Lighting window.
  • Use the 
    Lightmapping.Bake
    API.
  • Use the 
    Lightmapping.BakeAsync
    API.
To check lightmaps while you're editing, you can now select a Scene View Draw Mode and set Lighting Data to Preview. This displays a preview of the baked lighting. The preview lightmaps are non-destructive, and you can use them after you've baked the scene.
If a scene relies on auto-generated lighting, it no longer has its baked lighting. Select Generate Lighting in the Lighting window to re-bake the lighting manually.
If you use a script to open a scene, you must now use 
Lightmapping.Bake
or 
Lightmapping.BakeAsync
instead of waiting for auto-generated lighting to complete.

DepthAuto, ShadowAuto and VideoAuto graphics formats are now obsolete

The following graphics formats, which were previously deprecated in 2022.1, are now obsolete and produce compile errors if you use them:
  • GraphicsFormat.DepthAuto
  • GraphicsFormat.ShadowAuto
  • GraphicsFormat.VideoAuto
The GraphicsFormatUtility.GetGraphicsFormat API no longer returns the obsolete formats. Instead it does the following:
  • Translates 
    RenderTextureFormat.Depth
    to 
    GraphicsFormat.None
    instead of 
    GraphicsFormat.DepthAuto
    . 
    GraphicsFormat.None
    indicates depth-only rendering.
  • Translates 
    RenderTextureFormat.Shadowmap
    to 
    GraphicsFormat.None
    instead of 
    GraphicsFormat.ShadowAuto
    . If you create a render texture with the 
    GraphicsFormat.None
    format, you must set RenderTextureDescriptor.shadowSamplingMode to ShadowSamplingMode.CompareDepths to enable depth-compare sampling.
Because 
GraphicsFormat.DepthAuto
and 
GraphicsFormat.ShadowAuto
were both considered depth stencil formats but used as colors formats, you may need to adjust your code.
For example, in the following snippet, 
GraphicsFormatUtility.IsDepthFormat
returns 
false
instead of 
true
:
RenderTextureDescriptor desc = new RenderTextureDescriptor(256, 256, RenderTextureFormat.Depth, 32);bool isDepthOnly = GraphicsFormatUtility.IsDepthFormat(desc.graphicsFormat);
To check if a 
RenderTexture
or 
RenderTextureDescriptor
is depth-only, use one of the following:
  • if (renderTexture.graphicsFormat == GraphicsFormat.None && renderTexture.depthStencilFormat != GraphicsFormat.None)
  • if (renderTexture.format == RenderTextureFormat.Depth || renderTexture.format == RenderTextureFormat.Shadowmap)

Mipmap Limits no longer affect runtime Textures by default

Runtime-created 2D textures will no longer have their mipmap upload limited by default. Before, mipmap limits had to be disabled explicitly via the Texture2D constructor (by providing an 
ignoreMipmapLimit
boolean parameter when the constructor is called with a TextureFormat, or the 
IgnoreMipmapLimit
TextureCreationFlag when it’s called with a GraphicsFormat), or by toggling 
tex.ignoreMipmapLimit
of a constructed texture. This behavior has changed: mipmap limits are now opt-in for runtime-created 2D textures.
Without making project changes, in the following cases users miss out on GPU bandwidth and memory optimizations, and potentially see a better quality than intended because textures are now getting uploaded at full resolution:
  • Users who unknowingly expect runtime textures to follow the quality settings.
  • Users who intentionally wanted runtime textures to follow the quality settings and achieved this by using any default Texture2D-constructor.
In following cases, users are not affected by this change:
  • Users who explicitly wanted runtime textures to remain full-resolution.
  • Users who intentionally wanted runtime textures to follow the quality settings and achieved by making the following explicit:
    • Using a constructor with a TextureFormat, with 
      false
      for 
      ignoreMipmapLimit
      ,
    • Setting 
      tex.ignoreMipmapLimit
      to 
      false
      after construction.
These users may want to upgrade their scripts if they use deprecated constructors.
To upgrade your scripts, use a Texture2D constructor with a 
MipmapLimitDescriptor
to indicate that a runtime Texture should be affected by the quality settings.
This change was made for consistency with the new mipmap limit support for Texture2DArrays. Rather than having each texture shape define its own default mipmap limit behavior, we opt for consistency and have decided that runtime textures should explicitly enable mipmap limits. This opt-in behavior is preferred over opt-out because runtime textures are often used in more versatile ways where unexpectedly uploading fewer mips than expected could be more harmful than unexpectedly uploading more mips.

Enhanced custom controls creation with UXML

Simplified the creation of custom controls with UXML in UI Toolkit to speed up the workflow and make it more intuitive.
A key improvement is the introduction of UxmlElement and UxmlAttribute attributes. These attributes simplify attribute authoring and automatically derive the attribute names from property names, eliminating the need for UxmlTraits and UxmlFactory classes.
You can now create custom attribute converters for specific data types, ensuring seamless conversion of values to and from UXML attribute strings. We’ve also enhanced UxmlObjects, allowing custom, non-visual elements to be defined within visual elements. The new system leverages the Unity serialization and uses a source generator to create UxmlSerializedData classes for elements from all UxmlAttribute definitions for each custom element class, enabling support for custom property drawers, decorators, and various attributes.
The introduction of “attribute overrides” allows you to customize the behavior of UXML attributes, and provides flexibility when you work with inherited attributes. These improvements provide a more efficient and user-friendly experience for creating complex UI elements in Unity 2023.2 and beyond.
For example, the following code sample is a custom control created with 
UxmlFactory
and 
UxmlTraits
:
public class HealthBar : VisualElement{   private const float k_LowValue = 0;   private const float k_HighValue = 100;   // Declare as usable with Uxml   public new class UxmlFactory : UxmlFactory<HealthBar, UxmlTraits> { }   // Define attributes (and connect with class properties) for Uxml    public new class UxmlTraits : BindableElement.UxmlTraits   {       UxmlColorAttributeDescription m_Color = new UxmlColorAttributeDescription { name = "color", defaultValue = Color.white };       UxmlFloatAttributeDescription m_Value = new UxmlFloatAttributeDescription { name = "value", defaultValue = k_HighValue };       public override void Init(VisualElement ve, IUxmlAttributes bag, CreationContext cc)       {           base.Init(ve, bag, cc);           var bar = ve as HealthBar;           bar.color = m_Color.GetValueFromBag(bag, cc);           bar.value = m_Value.GetValueFromBag(bag, cc);       }   }   public Color color { get; set; }   [Range(k_LowValue, k_HighValue)]   public float value { get; set; }}
The following code sample does the same thing as the previous code sample, but uses the new 
UxmlElement
and 
UxmlAttributes
system:
[UxmlElement]public class HealthBar2 : VisualElement{   private const float k_LowValue = 0;   private const float k_HighValue = 100;   [UxmlAttribute]   public Color color { get; set; } = Color.white;   [UxmlAttribute]   [Range(k_LowValue, k_HighValue)]   public float value { get; set; } = k_HighValue;}
For more examples and information, refer to Unity UI Toolkit documentation, and stay tuned for an in-depth blog post this fall.

Assets/Create menu and ScriptTemplates have been reorganized

The Assets/Create menu has been reorganized and categorized. As part of this overhaul, the Unity Built-In ScriptTemplate files have been renamed.
Users who have added elements to the Assets/Create menu with either 
CreateAssetMenuAttribute``, MenuItemAt
tribute or a Custom ScriptTemplate might want to change their menu item’s priority as it’s placement relative to other elements is now different.
Users who were creating assets by executing these menu items with the 
EditorApplication.ExecuteMenuItem
API, must verify the new path to the menu item.
Users who have previously overridden the Unity Built-In ScriptTemplates must update the names of their override files to ensure they match the new names of the Built-In Templates.

UI Toolkit event handling reorganization and simplification

The 
ExecuteDefaultAction
and 
ExecuteDefaultActionAtTarget
methods have been deprecated. The following methods are added to replace them:
  • HandleEventTrickleDown
  • HandleEventBubbleUp
Unity executes these new methods on each element in the event dispatching path immediately after 
TrickleDown
and before 
BubbleUp
callbacks of that element. During those methods, the dispatching phase is set to 
TrickleDown
or 
BubbleUp
accordingly and the event’s `currentTarget`` coincides with the element executing the method.
The 
AtTarget
dispatching phase and the 
PreventDefault
method have been deprecated. Calling 
StopPropagation
or 
StopPropagationImmediately
now stops further executing 
HandleEventTrickleDown
and 
HandleEventBubbleUp
at the same time as it stops further invocation of the 
TrickleDown
and `BubbleUp`` callbacks.
In most cases, if you don’t upgrade to the new methods, your code should not alter its behavior significantly. UI Tookkit still calls the obsolete methods in the same order as before, or with minimal adjustments. However, all the standard controls within UI Toolkit have migrated to using the new methods, aligning their logic execution order accordingly. Mixing calls to obsolete methods with the use of upgraded controls might lead to some logic being out of sync compared to previous Unity versions.
To upgrade existing code to the new methods, proceed as follows:
  • Replace 
    ExecuteDefaultAction
    and 
    ExecuteDefaultActionAtTarget
    by 
    HandleEventBubbleUp
    and 
    PreventDefault
    by 
    StopPropagation
    (or remove calls to 
    PreventDefault
    if 
    StopPropagation
    has already been called in the same code block. This covers the majority of cases).
  • If you have problems because of old code calling 
    PreventDefault
    during a 
    BubbleUp
    callback, which is no longer possible and can't be replaced by StopPropagation because the event has already reached its target, consider adding a callback during the 
    TrickleDown
    phase to call 
    StopPropagation
    . This step is generally sufficient to address such scenarios.
  • In rare cases where the above changes aren’t adequate to maintain the functionality of the old code, a thorough case-by-case analysis is necessary. The resolution might not always be straightforward in these contexts.

Additional resources