Artist Model/Prefab Workflow
- Nick Vosburgh
This page aims to capture the artist’s responsibilities when dealing with art assets in a Project.
Understanding Asset Types in Unity
There are 3 main asset types in Unity that have distinct behavior in regards to a scene hierarchy, project, and their relations to one another.
Models
Models are the imported asset containing all the data for the model to be rendered properly.
Imported into Assets/Art/Models.
Never use models directly in a Unity scene (ie. dragging the fbx into the scene hierarchy for use). The GameObject instance will only exist in the scene, requiring configuration to each instance.
Prefabs
Prefabs are a Unity GameObject complete with components, property values, and child GameObjects as a reusable Asset.
Any edits made to a Prefab Asset are automatically reflected in the instances of that Prefab.
To create a Prefab, drag the model asset into the scene, then drag the created GameObject into Assets/Art/Prefabs.
Official Unity Overrides Document - TL;DR: Changes made to a prefab via an instance (GameObject in scene) need to have their changes applied as overrides so that ALL instances can receive those changes.
Prefab-Variants
Variants are used as a motive configured version of a Prefab, complete with Motive SDK components attached.
Artists will not need to deal with variants directly. Instead, changes made to a Prefab will be reflected in the Prefab’s variant.
Art Reference Scene
Artists will use a scene existing in Assets/Art/Scenes to configure Prefab’s.
Scene should only use prefabs, changes made to a prefab will require overrides to be applied.
Prefab Overrides
Position X being modified shows a blue vertical line denoting the scene’s Prefab instance deviates from the Prefab Asset.
On the Prefab object, go into the Overrides and apply whichever or all changes.
The Prefab will then have the new property values baked in as the defaults, all Prefab Variants will automatically have those property values applied to them as well.