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Question Why are there so many textures showing when selecting a texture?

Discussion in 'Asset Database' started by XregularC, Nov 18, 2022.

  1. XregularC

    XregularC

    Joined:
    Apr 6, 2016
    Posts:
    2
    When selecting a texture for a material, I see a large number of textures available that I will never use for this project (see image). Most if not all of these textures seem to come from the "Packages" folder, specifically "Packages/com.unitv.collab-proxv/..." (see bottom of image).

    TooManyTextures.png

    I would prefer to not see these textures (or other assets) show up here unless I've added them to the project by placing them in the "Assets" folder, so I have three questions:
    1. Is this normal, to have these textures show up here?
    2. Can I hide (or remove) these textures so they do not appear, and if so, how?
    3. Will these textures be included in the build (taking up space), even though I won't use them?

    I'm using version 2021.3.12f1 (Personal)
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2022
  2. unity_Jonny

    unity_Jonny

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Feb 11, 2020
    Posts:
    22
    Hi, this is normal, but maybe not that helpful, the Editor is simply showing you all the textures it can find in your project folder.
    You can restrict the number of files shown here by using the search filter.
    For example, using the filter "a:assets" (without quotes) will show all textures found under the projects Assets folder.
    "a:assets myTexture" will show all textures under Assets/ with a name that contains the text MyTexture.
    There are a bunch of other filters you can use, listed here: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/search-additional-searchfilters.html
     
    tutorial4unity likes this.
  3. tutorial4unity

    tutorial4unity

    Joined:
    Apr 14, 2019
    Posts:
    14
    Thanks for your response. I am also facing this same issue. All small little ui control icons of various packages are crowding my project, and it becomes a task to select my asset in my own project.

    1. a:assets helps to filter out the "packages" files. But unfortunately a lot of packages keep their assets at /Assets/<some package> level which thus still show up in the search-provider window. Which is why everyone keeps a ProjectName folder at /Assets/ level to keep their project. Is there a way to pin point a directory in the search-provider window?

    2. Is there a way to save the above preset somewhere so that artists and designers dont have to bother understanding a semantic e.g. "a:assets" and also are discouraged by design to not select a wrong asset?

    3. I see there is a eye icon on the top right corner of the search-provider window, and I see clicking it crowds the list even more. I.e. there seems to be some mechanism in Unity to filter out non-project assets but I could not understand what it is filtering exactly. Is there a way to configure this "eye" feature?
     
  4. unity_chris

    unity_chris

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Dec 23, 2015
    Posts:
    17
    Hi,

    For 1), there is a
    dir
    filter you can use (and a corresponding
    -dir
    if you want to exclude a folder). This might do what you need.

    For 2), you can save searches from the 'open in search' modal/popout window, and they can be included as assets in the project, for ease of sharing with teammates.

    For 3), unfortunately the eye is not configurable - it's to show/hide the 'hidden' packages in a project. Usually these are 'low level' packages like Newtonsoft Json that you don't need to think about during normal usage, so the clutter can be reduced a little.

    Hope that helps!
     
    tutorial4unity likes this.
  5. tutorial4unity

    tutorial4unity

    Joined:
    Apr 14, 2019
    Posts:
    14
    dir filter does not work and always returns "unrecognized filter". But from your next point I got to know that there is a "advanced" object picker. Once I turned it on in preferences, I got an elaborate object picker.

    However dir continued to say "unrecognized filter"

    What did work was "p" i.e.
    p:Assets/Tutorial t:sprite
    if I try to pick sprites and it will only look into Assets/Tutorial directory.

    I could save a search but how to use it? If there was a way I could enforce these searches for one to pick an asset in a context then that would be stupendous!

    I looked a bit more into custom search provider but other than the manual I could not find any example based tutorial so I shot in the dark a few times and gave up.

    Thanks for confirming.

    Thank you for your responses Chris! I am now mainly looking for a way to keep that
    p:Assets/Tutorial
    always prefixed whenever someone tries to use the object picker.
     
  6. koirat

    koirat

    Joined:
    Jul 7, 2012
    Posts:
    2,068
    I feel your pain guys.
    Settings to enable/disable "show packages assets" would be helpful.
    Packages creators should be able to mark their directories if it is searchable or not.
     
  7. I disagree on this one. Package creators shouldn't mark their directories. Unity should finish the ability to publish packages as packages and the default search should only search the Assets/ space naturally excluding third-party packages and content. And then explicit search could search in the Packages space separately. IMHO.
     
    MUGIK and halley like this.
  8. koirat

    koirat

    Joined:
    Jul 7, 2012
    Posts:
    2,068
    But there are a lot of (mostly ?) asset packages (textures models etc.) and it is good that by default assets are visible, it simplifies things.
     
  9. Obviously we're talking about non-asset-centric plugins. Where the art-work isn't the point. I thought the op was clear on that they have the problem with editor-ui-icons, message-icons, buttons, etc. Not the textures of actual assets.

    And no, you will never ever get publishers to sort this out. They have enough problems anyways. I still think the solution is to allow publishers to install their plugins in the packages folder and exclude it from the default search (allow it upon manual switch). Problem solved, you can find the stuff, but they don't overcrowd search results by default and publishers don't have to manually clicking unnecessary tick-boxes on every single folders.
     
  10. koirat

    koirat

    Joined:
    Jul 7, 2012
    Posts:
    2,068
    ok, whatever the solution would be, we need it.
    Anything is better compared to current situation.