Assign a channel-packed texture to a URP material

In the Lit and Complex Lit shadersA program that runs on the GPU. More info
See in Glossary in the Universal Render PipelineA series of operations that take the contents of a Scene, and displays them on a screen. Unity lets you choose from pre-built render pipelines, or write your own. More info
See in Glossary (URP), you can use a single RGBA texture for the metallic, smoothness, and occlusion properties. This technique is called channel packing or texture packing.

Follow these steps:

1. Create a texture with the following channels:

   Channel	Property
   Red	Metallic
   Green	Occlusion
   Blue	Not used
   Alpha	Smoothness

2. Import the texture.

3. In the InspectorA Unity window that displays information about the currently selected GameObject, asset or project settings, allowing you to inspect and edit the values. More info
   See in Glossary window for the texture, disable sRGB (Color Texture).

4. Assign the texture to the Metallic and Occlusion properties of the material. Unity automatically uses the correct channels from the texture.

You can use Shader Graph instead if you pack channels in textures differently.

Additional resources

• MaterialsAn asset that defines how a surface should be rendered. More info
  See in Glossary
• Custom textures