Support plans are not clear

[Ram.Type-0]

Hi, Thanks for the report.
But, we have no plans to update legacy Unity-chan toon shader, We'll consider to adopt your susgestion in our new toon shader project, which is in progress in the following repo.
https://github.com/unity-technologies/com.unity.toonshader

Originally posted by @higeometry in #75 (comment)

• What is no longer supported ?
  At least, UTS2(LegacyRenderPipeline) is no longer supported.
  Is UTS2(URP) also no longer supported?

• How can we migrate our UTS2 projects ?
  What should we migrate our UTS2(LRP) projects to?
  UTS2(URP) ? or UTS3(LRP) ?
  Also, should we migrate our UTS2(URP) projects?

• Where was it announced grandly?
  The fact that "legacy Unity-chan toon shader is no longer supported" is very critical, and should be annouced grandly.
  But I have never heard about it before.

[H3idi-X]

Please let me clarify.
UTS2 (this repository), will still be supported through bug fixes, but we have shifted our resources to develop new features into a different product called Unity Toon Shader. For now, let's call this new product UTS3 (not the official name) for the sake of brevity.
We decided to create a different product mainly to reduce confusion, because:

1. The distribution channel is different. UTS2 has been distributed as unitypackages via Github releases, while UTS3 will be distributed via PackageManager.
2. The license is different. UTS2 is using Unity-Chan License 2.0, while UTS3 is using Unity Companion License (https://unity3d.com/legal/licenses/Unity_Companion_License).

Please note that:

1. UTS3 will support all render pipelines: HDRP, URP, and legacy (built-in).
2. since UTS3 is not ready yet, we don't advise you to adopt UTS3 if you are near release.
   On the other hand, if your project just started, we encourage you to adopt UTS3 because:
   a. you will get the new features in UTS3
   b. UTS3 will be easier to install using PackageManager
   c. as a side effect of (b), UTS3 will be validated through Unity's official testing process, meaning that UTS3 will tend to have less bugs.
3. It is easy to migrate from UTS2 2.0.7.5 to UTS3 because we designed their material parameters to be compatible to each other.

We wanted to wait a bit before announcing this transition because UTS3 is not ready yet, but in a hindsight, perhaps you are right that we should have announced it sooner, and we apologize for any confusion that may have occurred.

[tangx246]

Will UTS3 be included on the Unity Roadmap (https://unity.com/roadmap/unity-platform) when announced? We are very interested in tracking the development of UTS3, as it has a very compelling feature set for our game.

[H3idi-X]

We are currently working hard to make ToonShader as an official Unity product. At this moment, we don't have any particular date to announce when this will happen, but having more package users will definitely make it happen sooner.
So, we strongly encourage you to use and give it a credit in your product, and give us feedback.

[H3idi-X]

Hi, com.unity.toonshader has become a Unity experimental package and it can be installed via Package Manager since 0.6.1-preview was released.

The way to Installing experimental package requires a few steps.

1. Make sure git is installed in the system.
2. Open Package Manager
3. Click the + button, and choose Add package from git URL
4. Type in com.unity.toonshader and click the Add button.
   We can also specify a particular version, for example: com.unity.toonshader@0.6.1-preview
   We will push to make it as a Unity official package.

[H3idi-X]

And the documentation is now at docs.unity3d.com.
In order to adapt the package to the Unity standard translation system, we have temporarily removed the Japanese documentation from Github and the Unity website.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

[Ram.Type-0]

Please let me clarify.
UTS2 (this repository), will still be supported through bug fixes, but we have shifted our resources to develop new features into a different product called Unity Toon Shader. For now, let's call this new product UTS3 (not the official name) for the sake of brevity.

Actually, single pass instanced rendering has been added to UTS2. It is inconsistent between what you said.
SUPPORT PLANS ARE NOT CLEAR!

[H3idi-X]

That is me, made that decision and implemented single pass instanced rendering to UTS2. Nobu grafted my fix to UTS2.
It was not easy decision. Yes, we understand what you are getting at. This time, however, we judged updating UTS2 would be much better for those who are using UTS2 for VRChat. As UTS3 is in a transition to integrate 3 render pipelines to one shader.

I didn't want to cause confusion.
Those who are using UTS2 have to use converter 2 times as UTS3 0.8.x is not released yet.

• 1st, convert to UTS3. (now)
• 2nd, convert to UTS3 with 3 render pipeline integrated shader after releasing 0.8.x-preview.

I thought 2 steps of converting UTS2 to UTS3 should not be appropriate as when VRChat system update happens is uncertain. We noted why we updated UTS2 in the description for the release. NOTE: This is a community release to support the system update planned for VRChat in the near future.

[H3idi-X]

We are making a converter which directory convert UTS2 materials to integrated UTS3 ones. It is also capable of converting UTS3 0.7.x-preview 3 render pipeline independent shader materials to UTS3 0.8.x integrated shaders, standard one and the other compatible with tessellation.