Unity to Vircadia Pipeline

These packages are designed to allow the export of scenes from Unity to Vircadia, using Blender as an intermediate.

Usage

You'll need:

• Unity 2021.3.4.f1

  • gltfast package (by name, com.unity.cloud.gltfast)
  • Unity2Vircadia package (this repo)

• Blender 4.0.2 or newer

  • UnityToVircadia Blender addon (this repo)

Step 1. Unity

1. Open your project in Unity 2021.3.4.f1
2. Install gltfast package by name via the "Package Manager" found under the "Window" menu.
3. Install the UnityToVircadia custom package by select the "Assets" menu and Import Package/Custom Package
4. A new "Tools" menu will appear in the menu bar with the submenu "Vircadia"
5. From within the menu run "Get Lightmap Information" and select a folder to save the output to.
6. From within the menu run "Prep Materials for Export to Blender" and select the same output folder.
7. From within the File menu navigate to "Export Scene" and choose glTF-binary (.glb)

Step 2. Blender

1. Start a new scene and delete any default content (cube, camera, light, etc.)
2. Install the UnityToVircadia Blender plugin by going to "Edit/Preferences," select the "Add-on" tab and press the "Install" button. Select the UnityToVircadia.zip file and Press "Install Add-on". Press the check checkbox to enable the plugin. This will create a UnityToVircadia tab on the N panel.
3. Open the UnityToVircadia tab on the N Panel
4. Select "Import glTF 2.0" and Import the .glb file you exported from Unity
5. Press "Import Lightmap Info" and a dialog will open. Select the "LightmapInfo.txt" file from the folder we created earlier. This will generate a mesh container for the lightmaps called "vircadia_lightmapData." * Note: At the moment you will not see these lightmaps until export. container will be removed automatically in Vircadia-web
6. Press "Adjust Shaders" to correct material properties and repeats.
7. Press "Preview Lightmaps" to preview lightmaps. You can then "Clear Lightmaps" to revert to your previous state if you choose.
8. Press the "Export glTF 2.0 button to export your model. Set your format to glTF Binary (.glb). From within the export dialog, open the "include" tab and be sure "Custom Properties" is selected. We recommend setting your Material Image format to Webp and checking "Create Webp". Compression can be used as well to lower file size, but minor artifacts may appear. Export glTF 2.0.

You are now ready to upload your .glb file to the public folder. An S3 bucket is recommended. Amazon (AWS), Digital Ocean, Linode, and more all offer S3 compatible storage.

Notes

• Use URP shaders with a "Metallic" workflow. Specular is not recommended and may cause visual inconsistencies.
• At the moment ".gltf" export (separate .bin and textures) from unity's glTFast plugin will not import properly into blender, so be sure to use ".glb"
• Animation exports are not currently supported