Free, open-source CRT, VHS, film, glitch, dithering, and retro post-processing for Unity.
Built for the Built-in Render Pipeline, URP, and HDRP.
CrowFX turns a Unity camera into a complete real-time image-effects stack. Create convincing CRT displays, VHS and composite video, film damage, PSX-style color and dithering, analog-horror footage, digital glitches, LCD artifacts, and polished cinematic looks from one searchable inspector.
Install · Quick start · Showcase · Effects · Releases
| Ghosting, jitter, and dither | Posterize, RGB bleed, and virtual resolution |
|---|---|
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Add
CrowImageEffectsto a camera, choose a look, and adjust or combine individual stages. CrowFX includes 88 curated looks and dedicated preset banks for each effect family.
- High-fidelity CRT, VHS, composite-video, film, lens, sensor, LCD, and codec simulation
- 88 curated full-stack looks across 11 production and experimental categories
- Dedicated preset banks for individual effect families
- Searchable custom inspector with previews, favorites, copy/paste, solo, mute, profiles, and Undo support
- Active-stage execution: disabled effects do not add render passes
- HDR-capable intermediate buffers with source-alpha preservation
- Built-in Render Pipeline support plus optional URP 14+ and HDRP 14+ integrations
- Installation validation, build-time shader checks, calibration charts, and editor tests
| Pipeline | Support |
|---|---|
| Built-in Render Pipeline | OnRenderImage camera component |
| Universal Render Pipeline 14+ | CrowFXRendererFeature |
| High Definition Render Pipeline 14+ | CrowFXCustomPostProcess |
Unity 2022.3 LTS or newer is recommended.
Install the versioned package from the OpenUPM registry:
openupm add com.luci0n.crowfx
In Unity, open Window > Package Manager, select + → Add package from git URL, and enter:
https://github.com/Luci0n/CrowFX-Unity-Image-Effects.git?path=CrowFX
Download a .unitypackage from Releases and import it through Assets > Import Package > Custom Package.
- Add
CrowImageEffectsto a camera. - Open Look Library in the component inspector and preview a look, or build a stack from individual sections.
- Select Apply to commit a preview. Applying a full-stack look requires confirmation because it replaces all effect settings.
- Save reusable configurations as
CrowFXProfileorCrowFXPresetAssetassets.
For URP, add CrowFXRendererFeature to the active renderer. For HDRP, register CrowFXCustomPostProcess in the HDRP custom post-process list and add it to a Volume.
| Effect | Capabilities |
|---|---|
| Sampling & Grid | Pixel scaling, virtual resolution, aspect-aware sampling |
| Pre-Grade | Exposure, endpoint-preserving contrast, gamma, saturation, color filter |
| Lens & Sensor | Radial distortion, lateral aberration, vignette, bloom, rolling shutter, sensor defects |
| Film | Grain, halation, gate weave, dust, scratches, flicker |
| Posterize & Palette | Uniform/per-channel quantization, luminance-only processing, ramp and Oklab palette matching |
| Dithering | Ordered matrices, temporal noise, blue noise, linear, diamond, and print-screen patterns |
| RGB Bleed & Jitter | Manual/radial separation, edge gating, chroma smear, deterministic channel movement |
| Ghosting | Difference-gated trails, response smear, millisecond capture, exponential decay |
| Motion & Datamosh | Motion-vector displacement, persistent history, frame holds, codec-vector corruption |
| Edges & Sharpening | Relative-depth/view-normal outlines, unsharp mask, contrast-adaptive detail |
| Digital Video | Macroblocks, quantization, chroma subsampling, ringing, mosquito noise, bitrate pumping |
| VHS Tape | NTSC/PAL processing, SP/LP/EP bandwidth, copy generations, AGC, head switching, RF dropouts |
| Composite Signal | Chroma bandwidth, phase error, dot crawl, rainbowing, crosstalk, comb filtering |
| CRT Display | Gaussian beams, scanlines, phosphor masks, focus, convergence, halation, tube geometry, hum |
| LCD Display | Pixel lattice, RGB subpixels, inversion, viewing-angle shift, response smear, backlight bleed |
| Masks | Channel-selectable texture masks and feathered near/far depth masks |
The Look Library contains eight looks in each category:
- Clean & Production
- Pixel & Handheld
- CRT Displays
- VHS & Tape
- Print & Illustration
- Digital & Glitch
- Dream & Music Video
- Surveillance & Broadcast
- Horror & Distress
- Color & Experimental
- Research & Analysis
Looks can be searched by name, purpose, or active-stage recipe. Preview is non-destructive; stopping a preview restores the complete previous stack. Favorites, category selection, search, amount, and the selected look persist between inspector sessions.
CrowFXProfilestores the complete component configuration and can be live-synced across cameras.CrowFXPresetAssetadds metadata such as description, usage tags, thumbnail, dependencies, strength, GPU tier, and schema version.- Use the component context menu Create Data-Driven Preset to capture a reusable preset/profile pair.
Sampling → Grade → Lens/Sensor → Film → Channel/Temporal → Quantization/Palette/Edges
→ Digital Video → VHS → Composite → CRT/LCD → Stack Masks → Presentation
VHS and composite stages operate in a gamma-encoded signal domain. Creative stages retain HDR headroom where supported. Temporal history is captured before transport and display simulation so tape and display artifacts do not recursively accumulate.
- Low, Balanced, and Reference quality tiers cap expensive history, smear, and palette operations.
- Ghost and datamosh buffers have independent resolution controls.
- Scanlines and phosphor masks fade safely when the output cannot resolve them.
Tools > CrowFX > Validate Installationchecks all required runtime shaders.- Build validation reports missing or stripped shaders before creating a player.
Tools > CrowFX > Generate Calibration Chartcreates a reference image for evaluating tone, resolution, and color behavior.
Projects with aggressive shader stripping should keep the CrowFX shader folder or add the reported hidden shaders to Always Included Shaders.
Per-channel posterize + edge outline + noise dither
