How can I remove the development build watermark in Unity?

Introduction

Unity is a powerful game development engine widely used by game developers and web creators alike. However, when you build your project in development mode, Unity adds a watermark to your output, which can be embarrassing or unwanted when sharing your work with the world. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore methods to remove the development build watermark from your Unity projects.

Understanding Development Build Watermarks

First, let’s clarify what development build watermarks are. In Unity, a development build is a non-optimized version of your project built for testing and debugging purposes. When you save a scene or build your project in development mode, Unity adds a watermark that displays "Development Build" along with the date and time at the top left corner of the screen or output image/video.

Methods to Remove Development Build Watermarks

Build in Release Mode

The most straightforward solution is to build your Unity project in release mode instead of development mode. In this case, Unity won’t add a watermark to your output.

To do this:

a. Go to File > Build Settings.
b. In the Scenes section, ensure that the desired scene is selected.
c. Under the Player Settings, make sure you have chosen the appropriate platform for your target output (WebGL, Android, etc.).
d. Change the Build Mode from Development to Release in the Build Settings at the top of the window.
e. Click on Build to generate your project with no watermark.

Disable Watermark via Scripting

If you need to keep working in development mode but want to remove the watermark for specific scenes, you can achieve this through C scripting:

a. Create a new C script and name it something like "NoWatermark."
b. Replace the content of the script with the following code snippet:

      using UnityEngine;

<h2>      public class NoWatermark : MonoBehaviour</h2>
      {
          void Start()
          {
              PlayerSettings.m_DevelopmentBuildEnabled  false;
          }
      }

c. Attach the script to an empty GameObject in the scene you want to remove the watermark from.
d. Save and reload the scene, and the watermark should now be gone.

Modify PlayerSettings via Scripting

You can modify the PlayerSettings directly to disable development build watermarks:

a. Create or open an existing C script in your Unity project.
b.

Add the following code snippet at the beginning of the script:




      using UnityEngine;
      using UnityEditor;

      [InitializeOnLoad]
      public static class NoWatermark
      {
          static NoWatermark()
          {
              PlayerSettings.m_DevelopmentBuildEnabled  false;
          }
      }

c. Save the script and reload your Unity project. The watermarks should now be removed from all scenes. Note that this method affects all scenes, so use it with caution.

Summary

In this comprehensive guide, we’ve explored various methods to remove development build watermarks in Unity. By building in release mode, disabling watermarks via scripting, or modifying the PlayerSettings directly through scripting, you can ensure that your output is free from watermarks and ready to share with others.

Keep in mind that it’s essential to balance testing and debugging needs with the desire for a watermark-free output, as development builds are meant for internal use only.