I have a bunch of models that me and some friends have made for our game. Right now our buttons are text that say what each model is. We want to change it to where the buttons show the model on it. Is there anyway of doing this without having to open each model up in our 3d application and rendering out an image of it? Or is there a way of using the preview of the model?
Showing the 3D objects for real time could waste your performance a lot. However you may wanna consider this way:
You can set a scene with desired lightings and position your model in the scene and then use this function :
http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/ScriptReference/Application.CaptureScreenshot.html
to store a screen shot to a given path. Then just simply use that image. you can same a lot rendering time.