assetsReporter.com - The best of the Asset Store (moved to Apps.farm)

A blog focused on the best of the asset store
http://www.assetsreporter.com
(updated formula, see below)

 

Very useful - I found few assets I missed.

 

Really neat idea, I am not sure a ´star´ system will be that useful though. In my opinion, you will be better off just writing the review.

For instance. both with 3 stars

A speedtree pack that costs $90 and cannot be used on really anything but high end computers and even then you are going to have performance issues

A free dinosaur model that looks great, is fully animated and free.. but has a z-axis issue that takes 2 minutes to fix.

I agree completely with everything you wrote in the reviews ( I read about 6), but just the star system seems to be not worth the effort.

And this is just my preference.. details about target demographic. For instance, so many of the assets on the asset store that get rave reviews and sell really well, are things that someone who knows how to program can do themselves fairly quickly, or would not need at all.

But overall, definitely bookmark worthy.

 

Very good input!
We did the change for the star system. The original idea was just to have a way to identify the assets we like the more. It will be a tag or a flag instead of a star system. The new posts in the blog now just have the stars for the user feedback.

 

Please include if animated assets have root motion or not, as discussed in this thread - http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/unity-should-enforce-quality-standards.337658/#post-2184738

Also - a lot of animated assets list being setup for mecanim use but do not clarify if the characters are humanoid rig compatiable or not. That information would also be helpful for customers.

 

Thanks for the good ideas - we will add that fore sure.
Also as soon as our assets analyzer is operational, we will be able to provide much more useful information.

 

Decent blog. Found a couple to put on my want list. Keep em comin.

 

Pretty sure (but not entirely clear) that this doesn't include code assets or Editor Extensions. If so, not interested.

 

Hi Jerotas, we have an Editor Tools section:
http://assetsreporter.com/category/editor-tools/

For the code assets we need to setup our review methodology and our benchmarks, we will add this section in a second step (I am a developer)

Really happy to see that Editor Extensions get some attraction. Some of them are essential in our workflows.

 

Hi, very interestng blog.

How much better is the Mantis LOD pack than the below one ?

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/25366

The price difference is very big, so would be great to have some more details on the comparisson you did. Like with every asset, the question is whether is it so much better (if it is, that is) that justifies the extra price.

Thanks

 

Hey Nasos
We could not test this one yet, will do ASAP. Mantis LOD has a very fast algorithm and focus only on polygon reduction, no altas for example. From what I can see in the video the Mantis one is much faster but we need to compare the results.
Before we can test the other one we added the link in the post as a comment. Thanks!

 

Looks interesting! Not sure why there are so many reviews on the art assets as its fairly straightforward if they look good or not, but I guess its a starting point.

=)

 

Interesting feedback LaneFox - We had the feeling that the art assets was not that easy to choose. After purchasing many, we found that at the end of the day we could not use them all: polygon count, quality of the textures, shaders, etc. So the blog focus on the few that was working for us, with mention if they are good for VR, Mobile and other (tags).
Maybe we should spend more time on editor tools and script than art assets? Editor tools is a category that don't get that many hits yet but we will see when we will have more reviews.

 

useful, I like the new VR (http://assetsreporter.com/tag/vr-ready/) and PBR (http://assetsreporter.com/tag/PBR/) filters

 

It is funny how some of us have different opinions. For me, the art stuff is better to review because sometimes it is hard to get a real feel for how the stuff looks at ´good performance levels´.. I know there is one popular artist who sells a lot of packs, but he uses post processing stuff in his videos that would really limit your target demographic if you tried to use the same effects in a real game. At other times, there are good developers that just are terrible at making videos, but their assets are quite good.

 

Checking our stats, I can see that people are looking for both tools/scripts and art. Urban City Pack is the most popular, then it is Mantis LOD Editor.
We will share all our stats (including keywords) to help publishers meet customers needs.

So far, the 25 assets bellow get most of the traffic (sorted by popularity):

1. Urban City Pack
2. Mantis LOD Editor - Standard Edition
3. Jungle Mega Pack
4. Bird Flock Bundle
5. BIG Environment Pack
6. MegaBook
7. House Collection
8. Urban Construction Pack
9. Edy's Vehicle Physics
10. Mysun Company
11. Polygons Count
12. HD Sci Fi Level Kit
13. Pony: a Classic Car + Cartoon Version
14. Time of Day
15. APOCALYPTIC FRANCE: DUO
16. Holographic signs
17. SciFi Cargo Vessel
18. Cartoon Town and Farm
19. Western Toon Level Pack
20. Construction Site
21. Post-Apo Pack
22. 3D User Interface Elements / Animated / Low poly
23. SpeedTrees Preview Package
24. Desktop Ground Cover Package
25. Landscapes Part 1

 

I bought mantis, based on your review. I actually was looking for something that does that and didnt know mantis existed. I could only find the 200 dollar one (forget the name)

 

The other version of Mantis is a dynamic LOD system, where the mesh is dynamically generated based on viewing distance. We could not review it yet, we need to see if really you save. It is not easy to test because it can depend on the scene but also the target devices.

 

Ok well I meant this one: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/4294

 

Ah ok sorry - yes we want to test it as it probably do almost the same.

 

@jerotas & @LaneFox following your comments we have increased our emphasis on scripts and editing tools:
http://assetsreporter.com/category/scripting/
http://assetsreporter.com/category/editor-tools/

 

Do the 'Last Update' values get updated automatically on your site? Just wondering as in your MegaBook review it says 'Last Update: Jun 22, 2015' when in fact it should be 'Jul 7, 2015'

 

Not yet, our posts are static. This is something we are working on.
We will do the update manually, thank you for the info

 

We did the update but... a part of our review was missing from the page!

We updated our post: http://assetsreporter.com/2015/07/03/megabook/
as you will see it is a little difficult for us to stop playing with your asset.

Maybe we will release our "top 100 assets" as a book!

 

Great idea. Thanks for posting .

 

For your information, after stopping our activities, we had the chance to meet with people at Apps.farm.

We will now operate the assets section on Apps.farm. The goal is to target gamers that want to start building their own games (or apps). Unity is the greatest path to success for them - we will highlight the best new assets on a daily basis.

Apps.farm
What is an asset on Apps.farm

So we will promote assets to people that are not Unity 3D specialists - more stuff ready to use than advanced tools - but we hope this can bring new people on-board...