3D model import tips

This article provides several import tips to help optimize your models for use in Sansar.

Model to Scale

Set your 3D suite's units to meters or feet and model your assets to a real life scale. This is important because Sansar only allows limited scaling in edit mode at this time.

Use Phong

The model you are importing should have Phong shaders applied. Sansar has a physically based renderer (PBR) and can use PBR texture maps when they are assigned to the proper channels of your object's Phong shaders. For more detailed information on how to set up Phong shaders and properly export .fbx files using popular 3D modeling tools, see 3D model export and setup tips using popular 3D tools.

You may also assign shaders and texture maps in Sansar when you upload an object. For more information, see Materials editing and shaders.

Keep collision meshes simple

Ideally, collision meshes should be very low-polygon cages that encapsulate the areas of a "render" mesh that you don't want avatars to be able to walk through. We strongly advise you not to use your render mesh as a collision mesh, since it will cause an unnecessary loss of performance.

Use detail normal maps

By repeating a normal map composed of subtle noise repeated at a moderate to high frequency, it's easy to make surfaces appear to be more detailed. To configure the tiling/repeat rate of your normal map in Maya or 3DS Max, set the Ambient Color channel UV tiling parameter. This function is not supported in Blender at this time.