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Unity 6.3 Beta is Now Available

Unity 6.3

Hello everyone,

We’re thrilled to announce that Unity 6.3 Beta is now available for testing. This version will become the next Long-Term Support (LTS) release once it reaches General Availability (GA). We encourage all creators, developers, and technical artists to explore this version, try out its new features, and share their feedback. Your input is vital in helping us make Unity 6.3 stable, polished, and ready for production. Our team of engineers and QA experts will be actively engaging with you on Unity Discussions throughout the beta phase.

About Unity 6.3 LTS

Unity 6.3 continues Unity's focus on stability, performance, and platform reach. Building on the progress from the 6.1 and 6.2 updates, this version incorporates lessons learned to deliver a smoother and more reliable experience.

Once Unity 6.3 becomes generally available, it will enter a two-year LTS support cycle with an extra year of extended support for users of Unity Enterprise and Unity Industry. This means long-term dependability is ensured for the studios running live or large projects. Once 6.3 GA is released, Unity 6.2 will no longer receive updates or support.

Current Unity 6.0 LTS, launched in October 2024, will continue to receive updates and support under the same two-year LTS policy with an additional year for Enterprise and Industry users.

Breaking Changes

Unity strives for each release in the 6.x series to be a seamless upgrade, but sometimes small breaking changes are required in order to move forward. These can include updating APIs, workflows, or other aspects of engine behavior in order to improve performance or enable features. All planned and known breaking changes for Unity 6.3 can be tracked by developers through the official discussion thread dedicated to this topic.

What’s New in Unity 6.3 Beta

Unity 6.3 brings a wide variety of feature upgrades, performance optimizations, and workflow improvements, all designed to make creating both games and applications easier and quicker. Below are the major highlights:

1. Improvements in Quality of Life and Productivity

UI Toolkit

Now supports customizable UI shaders, UI post-processing filters, and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG).

  • These features allow for easier development of advanced, dynamic user interfaces that scale nicely across devices.

  • You can combine vector-based visuals with lighting and post-processing for richer, more flexible UI designs.

Render 3D as 2D

  • Enhanced tools now allow 3D objects to be rendered with 2D depth and sorting rules.

  • Compatible completely with 2D lighting, sorting layers, sprite masks, and groups, enabling mixed 2D/3D scenes with smoother performance and visual consistency.

Shader Graph

  • Added support for up to 8 texture coordinates to enable complex terrains, stylized characters, and dynamic visual effects.

  • Introduced nested properties and keywords to easily create and manage SubGraphs.

  • New template browser helps you start shaders for various use cases - from unlit surfaces and decals, all the way to UI, particles, and post-processing.

  • Added terrain shader support and custom lighting samples to help users experiment with different visual styles.

Render Graph

  • The Render Graph system now supports more advanced rendering scenarios and provides better flexibility.

  • Includes faster iteration times, smaller build sizes, and a cleaner code structure.

  • If needed for debugging, you can also connect the Render Graph viewer directly to a device.

  • Unity has unified the Render Graph foundation across URP and HDRP, simplifying workflows for developers working with multiple pipelines.

Multiplayer

  • Introduced HTTP/2 support to make network communication more efficient.

Host migration for Netcode for Entities ensures that in client-hosted multiplayer games, those will remain online even if the original host disconnects, making it even more reliable in peer-hosted sessions.

Accessibility and Screen Readers

Added native desktop screen reader support to extend accessibility beyond Android and iOS (introduced in Unity 6.0).

  • Developers are now able to make their games and applications fully accessible to screen readers across all major platforms using Unity.

Audio

Introduced the *Scriptable Audio Pipeline**, which allows developers to create custom audio processing chains using Burst-compiled C# processors.

  • Enhanced Audio Foundation (EAF): This enhances device stability and allows higher-quality sample rate conversion for smoother audio transitions between devices.

2. Performance and Profiling Improvements

Profiler Capture Highlights & Capture List

  • Updated Profiler Overview: provides a clearer summary of profiling data, helps new users start using the profiler, and gives experienced developers quick insight and performance tips.

Optimized Lightmap Memory

  • Integrated xAtlas to create more tightly packed lightmaps, greatly reducing VRAM and disk space usage. Especially useful on mobile and VR applications.

  • Improved Batching for Renderers with Custom Data

  • Added a new shader user value API for MeshRenderer and SkinnedMeshRenderer, enabling per-renderer values accessible in shader code.

  • This improvement enables SRP batching even for renderers with dynamic data, reducing draw calls and increasing runtime performance.

Optimized Post-Processing for Mobile and XR

Added URP Bloom options optimized for both small and large screen resolutions, improving post-processing efficiency on mobile devices.

Future beta updates will add special post-processing features that are optimised for untethered XR headsets such as Meta Quest and improve the performance on tile-based GPUs.

Unity 6.3 Beta

Sprite Atlas Analyzer

  • New tool to highlight inefficiencies within sprite atlases so developers can reduce texture size and improve loading times.

2D Animation Performance

  • Overhauled IK system for multi-threading, added sprite deformation caching, and optimized single-bone mesh deformation.

  • Reduced data redundancy and removed unnecessary post-deformation processes, allowing smoother animations and faster runtime performance.

How to Join the Beta

Participation in Unity's beta program is open to everyone - no registration required.

You can download Unity 6.3 Beta directly via Unity Hub.

Because beta versions can have bugs or incomplete features, Unity highly recommends

  • Back up your project before opening it in the beta version.

  • Avoid using it in production for live projects until the final LTS release.

Follow the 6-3-beta tag on Unity Discussions to stay updated and for announcements, patch notes, and ongoing conversations with other developers and the Unity staff.

All beta releases are announced in the dedicated release announcements topic, and you can subscribe to updates using the bell icon.

Conclusion

If you have questions, find issues, or wish to share your impressions on new features, be it positive or constructive, please let Unity know through the community discussions. Every piece of feedback matters in shaping the stability and usability of Unity 6.3.

Recent Beta Versions:

6000.3.0b9
6000.3.0b8
6000.3.0b7
6000.3.0b6
6000.3.0b5
6000.3.0b4
6000.3.0b3
6000.3.0b2
6000.3.0b1

Thank you for participating in the Unity 6.3 Beta Program and for helping make Unity even better for all.

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