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Is it bad practice to make packages for re-useable art assets, or is it okay?

Discussion in 'Package Manager' started by Nigey, Sep 16, 2021.

  1. Nigey

    Nigey

    Joined:
    Sep 29, 2013
    Posts:
    1,129
    Hi Guys,

    TL;DR: Pretty much the title

    Longer winded version

    Looking for best practice here. I see there's many ways to share assets between projects now:
    • NPM Scoped Registry Packages
    • Git sub-repositories
    • unitypackage files
    • Symlink files in a local network
    We're using npm packages for everything and it's working brilliantly, so far. We're looking into sharing asset packs containing artwork for entire environments (buildings, props, prefabs, etc). Before we were just sharing editor tools or code. Are there pitfalls to using npm packages for this as well? Or is there a best practice to use something else instead? I notice Unity tend to have packages for editor tools rather than sharing assets. They normally tend to leverage their Asset Store for assets instead. Is it bad practice to use NPM Packages for shared assets, or is it okay?
     
  2. UnityMaru

    UnityMaru

    Community Engagement Manager Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Mar 16, 2016
    Posts:
    1,227
    It's not bad practice to use UPM packages for your use case, i.e. sharing re-usable art assets. The only "pitfall" we can see is that UPM cannot currently be distributed in the Asset Store. It's planned for the future, with no ETA to advise at present.
     
    Nigey likes this.
  3. Nigey

    Nigey

    Joined:
    Sep 29, 2013
    Posts:
    1,129
    Perfect answer. We only use them for private in-house shared packages. Thanks