Building Assets, how is it meant to be done?

Hello guys!

I'm new to this community, just started with unity and after having played with some terrain, objects, simple scripts etc following internet tutorials, I'm thinking now about building some kind of small scene to practice and implement some game mechanics as I put more assets in there.

The first element i wanna put in there is a log house, then expand around it. My brother is a talented 3D artist and he is gonna create the asset, but since I don't have an understanding of the 'philosophy" of unity yet, i'm wondering how it must be done.

- Do we create everything outside unity, in the Maya/Max/Cine4D etc etc? I mean the way I see it (but might be totally mistaken, is we need to build the house foundation/walls/ceiling/floors/stairs/window holes as one object, then create separate objects for doors, windows, furniture etc, import everything in unity, and place those on the house, and create scripts to get them open and closed afterwards (the doors, cupboards etc)

- Or could it be possible to design the whole house with all it's furniture as a single object with "sub-elements" you can then access in scripts and give them behaviors? Can textures be applied already to this object or do you have to texture it in unity afterwards?

- Would it be possible to create everything in unity from simple objects (cubes and stuff basically)?

Well, I think you got where I'm standing right now. If anyone cares how it should be done, pros and cons if there are multiple possibilities, it would be great

Thanks

Clément.

 

Well, We did some tests today, with a very "crude" house so I got part of my answers.

The house can be exported as .OBJ and re imported in unity. Sub-elements are accessible. I had to unpack the asset though to be able to reorganize it.

I was able to texturize it pourly in Unity.

So I guess create everything outside of Unity is the general auto answer i'm going to make to myself

I see many people have read and not replied, so I hope I did not sound too stupid

 

Archimatix.

 

It's not a good idea but it can be done, when I was new to Unity I made bridge trusses out of the default Unity cube . But you would have to slightly change the scales (ex: from 3 to 2.99 or 3.01) when they overlap to prevent z-fighting.

 

I tried using Probuilder/Probuilder 2 for creating my assets in Unity, but felt that I couldn't achieve what I wanted using them. They are great for doing a quick "prototype" of what you want your asset to look like and for doing a quick level design.

I confess that I bought Umodeler intending to use it instead of Probuilder. I watched a couple of videos on Youtube but didn't really start using it.

I downloaded Blender 2.8 to try it out and see what it is like, as I've always heard good things and want to try my hand at it. I found some good Youtube tutorials for it. I have been learning it for about a month, on and off, and find it is really quite powerful. It's a bit daunting at first, but I've gotten used to the interface and where to find things. The online manual is really great as well.

As I've said, I've only been using it for a few weeks, mainly following tutorials online and doing my own models.
Give it a go I say and I'm 54!
Blender Guru and Grant Abbitt on youtube are the two channels I have been following, but they're a lot more as well as these two channels.

Cheers