Asset Processors
The 3DVIA Studio build systems allows you to process imported Assets and optimize them for a particular Build Target Platform. For example, you may want to change an image’s proportions or invert the normals of a 3D model when building for the PC platform.
Asset processing operations are carried out during the Project Build process and must be specified from within the 3DVIA Studio application when setting up the Build parameters. In order to simplify Asset processing operations, the 3DVIA Studio application has been equipped with a library of pre-defined Asset Processors (Presets) which may be applied to individual Assets or groups of Assets in a per-target basis.
Asset Processors library view.
An Asset Processor is truly a piece of code or script outputing one or more Assets for a given input Asset. Asset Processors will allow you to automatically process Assets and Resources that
are not parcticularly suited for a specific platform. For example, textures can be
resized to suite more accurately a specific target platform, meshes can be decimated,
sounds compressed, and so on.
To use a processor, drag and drop it from the Asset Processors library to the Project Build Explorer‘s Build Info view (inside the “Process Asset” section of the node to process).
The results of Asset processing are cached into the Cache folder of the 3DVIA Studio Project Structure – with URI “$(ProjectURI)/Build/Cache/Process/$(BuildPlatform)/$(BuildConfig)/”, thus influencing the actual flow of individual Assets (see Asset Import).
Asset Processors Customization
3DVIA Studio allows you to create your own Asset Processors as Scripts implemented using the Virtools Scripting Language (VSL).
Creating your own VSL Asset Procesors will help you integrate your own media into 3DVIA Studio and increase Build Target Platform optimization, by automatically performing specifically defined operations on your imported media.
While new Asset Processors are created from the Asset Processors “Project” and “User” libraries (using the Asset Processors contextual menu, and specifying the processor name and description), edtion is carried out in the VSL Editor, with the usual VSL script operations (visit the VSL documentation and the VSL Asset Processor Example for futher information).
Creating Your Own Asset Processors
To create a new Asset processor,
- Select a Project/User folder/sub-folder in the Asset Processors library,
- Right-click on the Asset Processors list view (right-hand pane),
- Select “New Script Processor” from the contextual menu.
The window that immediately pops up will allow you to edit the Asset Processor’s name and description, as well as its physical location (see the New dialog documentation for more information). Select “Ok” to confirm the creation or “Cancel” to abort and return to the Asset Processors library.
Your new Asset Processor will open in the VSL Editor for editing. Refer to the VSL documentation for further information.
Using your Asset Processors
The Project Build Explorer shows all the processors that have been set on a specific selection.
For User-created Asset Processors, it will allow you to change the processor parameters specified in the VSL code. The configured parameters override any default value that may have been set in the input (pIn) structure.
