To import your own assets into ARC3DE you’ll need special permissions as this feature has not yet been made available to the general public yet. However, when available to import your assets visit the “Imports” section inside your profile. From the “Imports” page you’ll have three categories of assets that can be uploaded. These are FBX files, Images, and MP3s.

FBX files give the ability to upload your own models and textures from a single asset. Support image file types that can be embedded in your FBX as textures are png and jpg. Importing assets from an FBX is a two step process. The first step is to upload the FBX asset to your account. Next, select the FBX and “Import” to build a game ready prefab using the contents of the prefab. Note that the hierarchy of the FBX will be retained.

There are a couple aspects to be mindful of when importing FBX files and generating prefabs.

First, be mindful of the scale of your assets. Yes you can scale down and scale up assets but when you want to attach colliders and interact with your assets using physics its always best to keep your assets as close to real world scale. Assets are imported as 1 generic unity = 1 meter. To put that into scale your avatar is roughly 1 meter tall. I find it helps to place a 1x1x1 generic unit box in my 3D software to base the scale of my other assets. Otherwise you might import your assets and not see it either because it’s too small or so big it’s outside the camera clipping frustum.

Next, be mindful of poly count and texture sizes. There’s a reason ARC3DE is targeting a low poly aesthetic. The goal is to keep texture sizes and model poly counts small so that those assets can be 1) downloaded fast and 2) target more people with lower end graphics cards.

Next are images. Images can be used for textures or GUIs. Supported image formats are png and jpg. For transparency use PNG. Again, keep these files nimble. Images should be 512x512 pixels or smaller.

Finally, audio files can be uploaded and used as is. Simply upload the MP3 and it should be game ready. But again, please be responsible using a smaller bitrate to keep audio assets nimble. Sound FX should be roughly 10kb to 100kb and ambient music should be roughly 3mb or less. Use a single channel if stereo isn’t required.

You can also organize your files into different folders. It might not be needed in the beginning but later you’ll appreciate it.

Once in the Editor you can locate your asset from inside the Input window. For example, to import a prefab you created select “Import” from the File Menu, then the “Prefab” root icon, followed by the user folder on the left. From there your prefab asset should be available. Simply click your asset to import it into the scene.

The same applies to your textures and audio files. Once imported those files should be available to use in your scenes.

You can also create prefab objects inside the Editor and save those prefabs to your account. To save a prefab select a single gameobject (this can be the topmost gameobject in a hierarchy) and select “Save Prefab as New” from the File Menu. This prefab will appear in your account and can be imported into any other scene you own.

This feature is only available if you are the creator of the scene to prevent other people from using your unpublished assets in their scene. However, if you want to allow other ARC3DE members access to your assets you can “Publish” your asset from the “Assets” menu inside your profile. Additionally, you can “Unpublish” or “Delete” your asset at any time too.

Importing your assets is a powerful feature and one that we hope to extend to the community in the near future.