(I had gpt5 clean up my thought’s)
Proposal: Modular Rendering API & Render Graph Exposure for Stylized and Experimental Rendering
Summary
Unreal Engine’s rendering stack delivers unparalleled fidelity, but its closed architecture makes experimental and stylized rendering workflows difficult without engine modification. Artists and studios are increasingly blending photorealism with expressive, stylized looks, yet the current system limits access to the underlying Render Graph and light transport layers that define Unreal’s rendering identity.
Unity’s Scriptable Render Pipeline (SRP) has demonstrated the creative power of a modular, scriptable pipeline. Unreal has the foundation for this — through RDG, post-process materials, and the plugin architecture — but it’s not currently accessible to creators at the user or plugin level.
Problem
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Custom render passes and shading models require engine source modification or low-level C++ hooks.
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Material Editor and Post Process Materials are closed environments that cannot reference or feed from custom buffers or passes.
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There’s no supported way to register or reorder render passes within the RDG pipeline, even from plugins.
This rigidity prevents shader artists and small studios from experimenting with lighting models, anime-inspired rendering, custom GI, or NPR techniques — areas where Unity’s SRP has become a creative playground.
Proposal
Introduce a Modular Rendering API for Creators built on Unreal’s existing Render Dependency Graph (RDG) system, allowing users to:
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Register custom render passes (
BeforeBasePass,AfterLighting,BeforeTonemap, etc.) from C++ or plugin modules. -
Access standard render buffers (SceneColor, Depth, Normals, ShadowMasks, AO, etc.) from those passes.
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Output custom textures or buffers that can be referenced within Post Process Materials or the Material Graph.
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Optionally, expose these as nodes in a “Render Graph Editor” or through expanded Material node functionality.
Benefits
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SRP-level flexibility within Unreal’s higher performance framework to compete with unity.
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Enables stylized, toon, anime, painterly, and experimental rendering workflows without forking the engine.
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Strengthens Unreal’s appeal to technical artists, indies, and next-gen visual R&D teams.
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Opens Unreal to a new generation of creators driving the aesthetic diversity seen in Unity’s stylized ecosystem.
Closing
Unreal has already mastered realism — now it needs to democratize its renderer for stylization and experimentation.
A Modular Rendering API, with exposed Render Graph access and Post Process integration, would empower creators to define their own visual language inside Unreal rather than working around it.
The technology is already there in the RDG and plugin systems — it just needs to be exposed and sanctioned as part of Unreal’s creator toolset.
Personal Thoughts
One of the biggest unspoken issues in Unreal’s ecosystem is the “Unreal Engine look.”
No matter how different the art direction, many projects end up sharing the same underlying visual tone — the same shading feel, post-processing response, and light behavior. It’s not for lack of creativity; it’s because the renderer itself is locked behind layers of engine code.
By opening up the rendering pipeline — letting us build and share modular render passes, expose them to post-process and materials — we could finally see Unreal’s visuals break free from that sameness.
It would give every artist, from solo devs to large studios, the power to define their own style from the ground up.
The tools are already in Unreal — they just need to be opened up to the community that’s ready to use them.
Some may worry that opening the renderer would come at a performance cost, but modularity doesn’t have to compromise efficiency. The Render Dependency Graph already manages dependency tracking, batching, and scheduling — a modular API could simply expose controlled entry points into that system. In fact, letting developers design leaner, stylized, or single-pass pipelines could improve performance by removing unnecessary high-end features. Give creators control over how much power they actually need.
In the mean time I can just modify the engine but I would love to see community modules and easily update my engine version..