Are Material variants batched the same way (by pipeline - URP) as material instances?

[boreal solstice]

Does URP's SRP Batcher treat Material Variants (same parent material, different property, such as base color) the same as runtime material instances (renderer.material.color = ...)?

My question is, when I have a scene with 1000 assets sharing the same material (via instance) and changing a colour for each, will it perform the same as using 1000 assets sharing the same material via material variant?

I think I found an answer here on Discord: #1391720450752516147 message

variants != instances

That's pretty nasty, I don't understand why I can't make the material an 'instance' in the editor itself like in Unreal

My problem is that I have some Neon material in my scene. This same material is shared with many assets and I want each to emmit different color. I can do that in runtime no problem but I want to bake the lights, Unity doesn't allow me to change the colour per instance in the editor so when I bake the lights they all have the same color

[cobalt hinge]

That's talking about shader variants which is different.

I haven't really used material variants all that much, but afaik they just let you inherit/lock properties to make creating materials quicker.
A material asset, material variant or material instance should all SRP-batch the same.

Could confirm by testing it and looking at the SRP batches in the Frame Debugger window

[inland wind]

Yes, if you read my message again, I was talking about shader variants not material variants.
I did mention material variants as a way to minime memory usage(potentially).
Material variants should work like material instances for the purposes of batching, just like cyan said.

[boreal solstice]

Oh. It was late and I miss read the message. Both of you, thank you very much!!

[boreal solstice]

Yes. Also thank you for that. I wanted to know how could I confirm the theory myself and where in the debugger to read it. I come from Unreal so I’m still learning the ropes :))

[inland wind]

As cyan said, you can confirm in frame debugger.