Hi all,
I’m working through some of the tutorials on the 30 day trial.
I’ve also decided I’m probably going to be using Cheetah3d to create my character, buildings and other asset models.
Can someone recommend a good place to get started that has information on proper design of these games for import into Unity… just general guidelines and not necessarily Unity specific would be good.
I just want to make sure I use the right texture sizes when mapping, keep a reasonable number of polygons on the models, lighting techniques, etc… I want to make my life as simple and make things as efficient as possible when I start importing stuff.
I’d like to create some basic models and import them into Unity just to play around with that aspect before the trial is up.
Thanks for any information!
Open up the unity manual in a browser and check out their advanced section on optimizing assets. Its got some good information.
I am also a Cheetah user. So far I like it. It seems to be a good tool for organic shapes and animation. But you do need to be open to experimenting in order to learn how to use it because it is light on documentation and tutorials. The key to experimenting is setting up iterative versions of the same model at the stages of its development so that you can always go back to yesterday’s work in case you messed something up with that groovy tool that you experimented with.
My thoughts on what works in modeling (although I am also a NewB) is that 2000 polygons or less per mesh is a good goal. I actually shoot for 500 or less because I have really old hardware. A 1024 x 1024 texture is a good size while 512 x 512 can be plenty for a tiled texture with a UV map. 256 x 256 depending on the texture can work also if tiled. And lastly the number of materials you use per mesh seems to be important with regards to performance. So don’t use tons of materials on the same mesh. If you can do it in one then that would be great.
Again, I must emphasize that I just started learning this stuff in earnest this April so take what I say with a grain of salt (and maybe an alcoholic drink). Before April I was a Sketchup junkie. Crossing over to the world of UV maps, texture painting, and animation still has a shiny newness to it. I don’t fully know what I am doing.
Thanks aaronparr!
That’s the kind of the info I am looking for, just little tidbits from people to get me going in the right direction.
Just info like that can lead me off in a whole new direction as far as researching stuff.
I’m actually looking forward to experimenting, just needed a jumping off point. 
Thanks a lot!