Creating a Game-Ready Asset

Each stage of the game-ready pipeline is processed in sequence. After each step has completed, you'll be able to request revisions free of charge before approving your asset to the next step.

What is a Game-Ready Asset?

A Game-ready asset is a highly detailed 3D character or prop that is optimised, textured and, if needed, rigged. The normal maps from the high poly geometry will be baked onto the optimised geometry during the texturing stage. Game-ready assets also come with LoDs (Levels of Detail), which are lower poly count versions of your asset.

Game-ready vs. Game-ready with Rig

We recommend selecting Game-ready for:

Static props, AKA props that don't need to animate or be interacted with
Buildings and modular assets
Background props

We recommend selecting Game-ready with Rig for:

Characters
Dynamic props, AKA props that need to be animated or can be interacted with, such as vehicles and guns

Generation Settings

When creating your asset, you are able to select and deselect any of the stages if you'd like to skip it (excluding Optimised Geometry).

You can customise height, width, and depth for Game-ready assets. This ensures that your 3D models will be properly scaled.

Generation settings for Game-ready assets will include fields for texturing, rigging, and LODs. If you'd like to skip a step, simply uncheck the box for that stage.

High Poly Geometry Settings

High Poly Geometry is the first step of the Game-ready pipeline. The high poly model will be used to bake normal maps onto your optimised geometry. Since these models are highly detailed, the polycount can go up to 2,000,000.

Optimised Geometry Settings

The Optimised Geometry stage significantly lowers your asset's polycount to ensure smooth implementation into game engines and other applications.

LoD0 Target Tris Count - This will determine your optimised geometry's first Level of Detail.
Pivot point - The pivot point options allow you to change the point of reference for rotations, scaling, and transformations. Pivot points give you more control over how objects behave in your scene once exported.
Asset pose - If you'd like your character to be posed a certain way, you can choose between:
- Image pose - the output will follow how your character is posed in your input image
- T-pose - your character will outputted in T-pose
- A-pose - your character will be outputted in A-pose
Hair type - Choose your character's hair type from the dropdown menu:
- Hair Cards (AKA alpha cards): Ideal for real-time rendering.
- Sculpted Hair: Best for non-real-time applications, allowing for complex geometry.
Topology requirements - You can choose between "Quads only" and "Allow tris for optimisation." This will determine your asset's topology.
- We suggest:
  - Quads only if you'd like to edit your asset after the optimised geometry has completed.
  - Allow tris for optimisation if you will not be editing your model outside of Kaedim, and exporting the finished asset directly into your game or project.

Separate meshes - You can choose to keep your meshes separate or have them joined during the Optimised Geometry stage. You can also include details on how you'd like to separate them (e.g. Separate meshes by material)

UV Unwrapping Settings

UV preset - You are able to choose between the Kaedim default or presets you have given us to integrate for your generations.
Number of UVs - This will determine the number of UVs your asset will have. We recommend increasing the number of UVs depending on how many separate textures and materials your asset will have. For example, a character may have clothes, accessories, and hair that may require separate UVs.
How do you want them separated? - Please describe how you'd like your UVs separated to ensure the best optimisation for texturing.

UDIMs (U-Dimension) - You can choose to enable or disable UDIMs for your asset's textures.
Auto approve - You have the option to automatically approve the UV step and proceed directly to texturing, eliminating the need for manual approval between steps.

Texture Settings

Texture style- We have 2 default options to choose from: PBR and Hand-painted. If you'd like to use your in-house texture library, please get in touch with us.
Texture maps - Under this dropdown, you will be able to choose which texture maps to include for your textured asset.
- Texture maps included are:
  - DirectX Normal Maps or OpenGL Normal Maps
  - Albedo/Diffuse
  - Specular/Glossiness
  - Roughness/Metalness
  - Ambient Occlusion
  - Displacement
  - Emissive

Texture resolution - Texture resolution refers to the pixel dimensions of each individual texture image file (e.g. 1024x1024, 2048x2048, 4096x4096 etc.)
Texture export - For exporting textures, you can choose between baking textures directly onto your asset or exporting the textures separately.
Reference image - Here you can upload a reference image for your asset's textures. This will help in identifying different textures that will be applied to specific parts of your asset.

Rig Settings

Rig template - The Kaedim default will rig your asset according to its type. You also have the option to use your own in-house rig templates. If you'd like to add your existing rig templates for your assets, get in touch with us.
Facial rig - If you are creating a 3D character, you can choose to add a facial rig by checking the box.
Describe your rig - If you have specifications for your rig, you can include them here. For rigged props, you can describe which parts will move and how they will move.

LoD Settings

LoDs create lower polycount versions of your asset for optimisation. Under the LoDs tab, you can create up to 3 LoDs at different polycounts. You can input either a target polycount value or a percentage value that derives from the polycount of the optimised geometry to generate your LoDs. Click "Add another" to keep adding input fields.

You can further customise your asset by adding additional notes to specify your asset's art style or any technical requirements. Art specifications can describe aspects in your asset that may be difficult to convey in your concept art. Ex: details are not needed for back/bottom parts of the asset Technical specifications can be notes relating to how your asset is generated. Ex: topology should be most dense in the hair, pivot point should be at the bottom of the model

After you've configured the settings, you can save it for future generations by checking the box next to "Save Configuration." The saved configuration will be found under the "Custom" tab in the Create page.