Download and use assets at runtime. Is it possible?

Getting Started
1

Hi all,

I am quite new to Unity and I have to make some design decisions concerning a project I will be working on.

Specifically I want to know whether it is possible to dynamically load models downloaded from a backend.

Can I, for example download an .fbx file and then instantiate an object based on the .fbx provided??

If that is possible can I then do this with other type of files, like animations?

At the moment I don’t care about how long these files may take to download or anything like that.
I just want to know if it is possible to download assets from the web on runtime and incorporate them in my game.

2

No, there is not (as far as I’m aware) a decent FBX importer for use at runtime with Unity.

You can do OBJ files; they’re quite simple, and a bit of searching will turn up code to do import those. However OBJ files don’t have animations.

You can of course define your own file format, or write your own code to import some existing format. So sure, importing models with animations is possible, but it’s not easy.

UNLESS, that is, you can prepare those models and animations for the backend with Unity, and package them in Asset Bundles. Then it becomes easy again. :slight_smile:

1 Like
3

This is the way to do it. Asset bundles are quite straight forward.

2 Likes
4

Is it possible to do this with existing classes/assets like animation clips outside bundles?

5

Basically, no.

6

Since we are in getting started, this works.

If you are really a glutton for punishment, you can write your own asset loader and interact with files directly. But honestly, what is the point?

7

There is an asset on the store that partially supports FBX at runtime.

Here is the complete list of formats that are supported as well as whether they’re partial or not.

Additionally here is the list of known limitations.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to determine what their definition of “partial” is.