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Asset Tools Unity

Asset Tools Unity

Asset Tools

Asset Tools is one of the toolbars available under the SYNK menu. It contains tools related to importing, updating and reviewing assets from a project’s library.

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Asset Updater

This tool will update any outdated assets in the project. When that’s the case the tool button will appear in red.

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When updates are available, the tool will display a list of all the assets that are new or have a new version. You can select which ones you want to update by either ticking the checkmark or by using the Select All button. It is strongly recommended to always update everything and it is required to have all assets updated for some tasks.

After selecting the assets to be updated, press the Import/Update selected button.

Note that the update process can take quite a while, especially when updating textured assets. Even then, it is still good practice to update the assets when the button is red.

Unity Packages

The asset updater will also import or update any published UnityPackages.  UnityPackages are a collection of unity assets published together for a certain purpose, for instance for effects, example: effx_Clouds_A_efx_v005.unitypackage or for character shading, example: char_Tidling_A_shd_v003.unitypackage.

After the package is copied to your project, it will be automatically imported. Typically, textures and materials in a package are copied and imported in the project while prefabs and fbx files are not copied but the overrides are re-applied in the project. We do this to avoid breaking bindings in for instance timelines.

You can always reimport a package from your project with the context menu option ‘SYNK/Import Unity Package’, this will process the package in the same was as the asset updater did

Never import a SYNK package in your project by double clicking it, this will override everything and break bindings. When you try to do this, you will get a warning message but you will have to manually cancel the actual import action.

Asset Browser

Normally all assets that you need are imported automatically into your project based on ftrack links:

  • All sets that are linked to the environment

  • All assets that are linked to those sets or environments

  • All assets that for sets because they are linked to the environment in ftrack.

  • All shots and sequences that are linked to the environments.

  • All assets that are linked to those shots or sequences.

But in some cases, it might be necessary to add additional assets to your project. For that task, you can use the Asset browser which allows you to import any published asset into your project and even immediately add it (as a placement) to the shot or sequence you are working on.

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This list follows the same hierarchy as in Ftrack. You can also use the search field to filter the list.

For each asset, there can be different variants. In the last step, you select which tasks should already have been executed on the asset: for instance, do you want the resulting asset after the modeling task or the resulting asset after the texturing/shading task. Note that these tasks are only loaded when you select the variant, so it is possible that you have to wait a bit before they appear.

For each asset, thumbnails of the published version are shown.

Adding the asset to your project

Once you have selected an asset, you have different options to how and where to add this asset in your project:

  • To your current project

    • This will only add the asset to your project but not add it to any scene.

  • To an environment or set scene

    • The asset will be imported in your project but also immediately added to a scene.

    • This can be useful if you are doing Set Dressing in unity for instance.

    • The new asset will be parented to the object you have selected in the scene in the hierarchy

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  • To a timeline scene:

    • An asset can be added to a timeline scene with 2 different purposes: an animated asset or a static asset. When it is added as a static asset, we call it a placement and put it under the Placements parent.

    • An asset can be added either on shot or on sequence level

      • Select a sequence object in the scene hierarchy if you want to add the asset on sequence level, so that it is shared by all shots.

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      • Select a shot object in the scene hierarchy if you want to add the asset on shot level, so that it is specific for that shot.

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When adding an asset as an animated asset to a sequence or shot, the pipeline will also automatically create an animation track for it.

There is also an option to create a link to ftrack (which is on by default). This is useful when you add an asset to a shot or sequence or environment that is initially not linked on ftrack. This is important if you want your assets to be updated automatically using the Asset Updater.

This is also required when you animate the asset in the shot because without this link it will not be added to the Animation Preparation scene that will be used in Animation.

Unity packages

With the asset browser you can also import published unity packages in your project (typically effects or shading are published as unity packages).  After the package is copied to your project it will be automatically imported. Typically, textures and materials in a package are copied and imported in the project while prefabs and fbx files are not copied but the overrides are re-applied in the project. We do this to avoid breaking bindings in for instance timelines.

You can always reimport a package from your project with the context menu option ‘SYNK/Import Unity Package’, this will process the package in the same was as the asset updater did

Never import a SYNK package in your project by double clicking it, this will override everything and break bindings. When you try to do this, you will get a warning message but you will have to manually cancel the actual import action.

Asset Sanity Check

To make sure all the imported fbx's and generated prefabs have the correct synk material and are constructed correctly, there is a Asset Sanity Check tool.

With this tool you can check if there are incorrect materials assigned to assets and also fix this.

  • Missing materials will be created, existing materials will be reassigned, prefabs will be updated. (unless there is something wrong in the materiallink file, then the issue will remain)

  • Also missing prefabs will be created, existing prefabs will be updated or reassigned

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You can expand the Problematic meshes menu to see which parts of the assets are wrong and which material is currently assigned.

3 options are available to resolve the material assignment issues :

  • Select the assets in the list and press Fix selected prefabs

  • Drag & drop the fbx asset at the bottom input and press Update/Fix materials and prefabs

  • Update and fix ALL materials from the project. This option is to use with precaution as the process can be quite long.

Asset Quality Switcher

With this tool you can switch between the different LODs and/or task types of an asset.

  • Select one or more assets in the scene hierarchy and add them for replacement.

  • TaskType Replacing:  you can switch between the modelled / textured / rigged versions of the selected assets. If a certain version is not available but it is available in another LOD and you have selected Allow LOD changes,  the asset will be replaced with the selected task-type in the available LOD. For instance you switch from HD model to textured but only MD textured exists, then MD textured will be used.

  • LOD Replacing: you can switch between the different LOD (level of detail) versions of the selected assets. Same mechanism exists here when certain LODs do not exist, you have the option to use other task-type assets.

  • Switch all to LD MDL temporarily: this special option can be used to switch all assets to their LD MDL version (lowest quality, highest performance).

Asset Lineup

This tool allows the artist to create a lineup of selected assets in order to review them.

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You can make a selection from the different categories of assets present in the project, then tweak the settings of the lineup itself.

Once your settings are selected, you can click Create or update asset lineup scene, and your scene will be created and opened. You can tweak settings of your Asset Lineup scene after it is created, and click the button again to update it.

Build Environments

Before you can build environment or set scenes, you have to make sure all needed assets are available and up to date. To do that, login to ftrack and select an environment as current task.

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Next check the asset updater to see if there are any new assets or assets that need to be updated.

Depending on the workflow of the project, the set dressing can be done in Unity and not in Maya.

Now, open the Build Environments tool, select the environments or sets to build then click Build Selected Environments/Sets. Here you will see environments and sets that are linked to the current project. It will create and populate the scenes with your assets.

This window also shows the status of the environments in the project. If a new dressing/hierarchy file was imported into the project during asset update, this window will flag that a new version of an existing environment is available to be built.

 

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 In the scene hierarchy, you will see a red label pointing out if a set or environment is outdated.

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This is how your environment scene should look like in Unity

Build Sequences

Before building your sequence, make sure all necessary assets are updated.

A sequence scene is a scene that contains a timeline of a sequence with all its shots.

To build it, head to the Asset Tools toolbar and select Build Sequences OR head to the top menu and select SYNK > Asset Tools > Sequence Scene Builder.

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Make sure that both the storyboard and audio are selected for import and then Build only your currently assigned sequence.

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It will take a couple of minutes to build and populate the Hierarchy window with a sequence timline template scene adjusted with the correct reel, sequence and shots based on the OTIO file as well as a timeline containing shot objects each filled with the storyboard image sequence and audio exported from the editing software.

Texture Resolution Changer

Under SYNK > Asset Tools, you’ll find Texture Resolution Changer.

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This tool allows you to change the resolution of selected textures in a Unity project.

  • Click Select Folder, browse to the folder containing the textures you want to change

  • Select the resolution

  • Select the type of compression

  • Click Apply Changes

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