HOWTO-ArtAssetBestPracticeGuide
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HOWTO-ArtAssetBestPracticeGuide

Unity supports textured 3D models from a variety of programs or sources. This short guide has been put together by games artists with developers at Unity, to help you create assets that work better and more efficiently in your Unity project.

Scale & Units

Files & Objects

Sensibly named objects help you find stuff quickly

Mesh

Stairway to framerate heaven

The method you use to construct objects can have a massive affect on the number of polygons, especially when not optimised. Observe the same shape mesh : 156 triangles (right) vs 726 (left). 726 may not sound like a great deal of polygons, but if this is used 40 times in a level, you will really start to see the savings. A good rule of thumb is often to start simple and add detail where needed. It’s always easier to add polygon than take them away.

Textures

Textures are more efficient and don’t need rescaling at build time if authored to specific texture sizes – e.g a power of two – up to 4096×4096 pixels, e.g. 512×512 or 256×1024 etc. (2048×2048 is the highest on many graphics cards/platforms) there is lots of expertise online for creating good textures, but some of these guidelines can help you get the most efficient results from your project:

1 texture (left) vs 3 textures (right)

Tiling textures ftw

Do you need ALL those windows?

Materials

Import/Export

Unity can use two types of files: Saved 3D application files and Exported 3D formats – which you decide to use can be quite important:

Saved application files

Unity can import, through conversion: Max, Maya, Blender, Cinema4D, Modo, Lightwave & cheetah3D files, e.g. .MAX, .MB, .MA etc. http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/HOWTO-importObject.html

Advantages:

Disadvantages:

Exported 3D formats

Unity can also read FBX, OBJ, 3DS, DAE & DXF files – for a general export guide you can refer here: http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/HOWTO-exportFBX.html

Advantages:

Disadvantages:

Page last updated: 2011-09-12