Questions about how to import a model from blender which will have several textures and materials

Questions & Answers
1

Hello Unity forums,

This is my first post here, and I hope I placed my question in the right subforum. If not, I apologise for the inconvenience, and feel free to move/delete it.

Now I’ve just gotten into game dvelopment, as a hobby for now. I’ve chosen Unity instead of UE4 because of good past experiences and easier integration with Blender.

My question might seem silly to most, but because I have trouble forumlating it, I can’t find the answer myself.

I’m modelling an astronaut’s suit in blender. Obviously, materials, textures, and all the rest are going to be varied: the visor is different from the suit “skin”, the tubes from the patches, etc… Do I have to:

  • Model each component individually in
    blender, apply textures, materials,
    etc and THEN put it all together in
    Unity?
  • Or make the model as a whole and find
    a way to give certain properties to
    certain areas of the suit?
  • Something else?

Now again, I apologise for the poor formulation of the question, but if someone understands me and can give an answer, I’d be more than thrilled to hear it!

Good day to you, and good luck on everyone’s projects!

2

Will you animate your astronaut ?

  • If so it would be easier to have one mesh when you will rig and skin it. One is more than enough to give you a headache.
  • If you don’t need to, you can keep it as separate object as it simpler to access your object properties in both Blender and Unity. If you change your mind It also easier to merge several mesh into one than separate them from one final object.
3

Thank you for your answer. I can see how animation will be the deciding factor.

The initial plan is to have a suit which will be animated, to bring the arm up to eye level to display the UI for instance. However, other parts of the suit, like the torso, won’t (normally) be vsible from the FirstPerson camera, so I don’t really even need to model that.

Knowing this, which solution would you recommend?

And as a side note, if one has a single, complete mesh, but wishes to add different textures/materials/etc… to different parts, how should we proceed?

This might be a bit of a drag, but I hope it doesn’t bother too much. Thanks for setting the “rules” in your previous answer.