Assets and importing
Everything a project uses, from scenes to sounds, is an asset, listed in the Assets panel.
The Assets panel
Section titled “The Assets panel”On the left is the tree of groups (folders); on the right, the selected group’s contents. Groups are listed first; double-click one to go into it, and use the path above the list to go back up. The button beside the path switches between a list and a grid of thumbnails.
The filter box searches every group at once, by name or by the start of an asset’s ID.
Each row shows the asset’s type and whether it is cooked: cooked, missing (not cooked yet) or FAILED (the Console says why).
- Double-click an asset to open it.
- Ctrl+click and Shift+click select several.
- F2 renames, and Delete deletes after asking.
- Right-click an asset for Open, Rename, Duplicate, copying its ID or path, pinning it as a favourite, Always Export, Cook, Rebuild and Delete.
- Right-click the background for Create, New Group, Import…, and the group’s own commands.
Creating assets
Section titled “Creating assets”The background menu’s Create (and the File menu) makes new assets: scenes, prefabs, input maps, render textures, navigation zones and particle effects, then by category:
| Category | Assets |
|---|---|
| Animation | Animation Graph, Property Animation Clip |
| Audio | Audio Bus Layout, Sound Cue |
| Materials | PBR Material, Unlit Material |
| Physics | Physical Material, Collision Shape |
| Primitives | Cube, Sphere, Plane, Cylinder, Cone, Torus |
| Rendering | Environment Profile, Post Process Profile |
| Scripts | a Behavior, Level or Game script, in Luau or AngelScript |
| Terrain | Heightfield, Terrain, Splatmap, Vegetation Mask |
| UI | UI Document, UI Theme |
A new asset is created in the selected group.
Always Export
Section titled “Always Export”An export packs every cooked asset unless its preset is set to keep only what the game reaches from its default scene and startup script. An asset the game loads only by name from a script is not reached that way: mark it Always Export (or a group Always export contents) and it is kept. A small dot marks what is flagged.
Importing your own files
Section titled “Importing your own files”Bring files in with Import… on the Assets panel’s right-click menu, or drag them onto the editor from your file manager. They land in the group selected in the Assets panel.
| Kind | File types |
|---|---|
| Models | .glb, .gltf, .fbx, .obj |
| Textures | .png, .jpg, .jpeg, .tga, .bmp, .hdr, .dds |
| Images (for UI) | .png, .jpg, .jpeg, .tga, .bmp, .hdr |
| Sounds | .wav, .ogg, .mp3, .flac |
| Fonts | .ttf, .otf, .ttc |
| Scripts | .luau, .as |
| UI | .sml (documents), .sss (themes), .svg (vector images) |
| Terrain | .png and .r16 heightfields, .png splatmaps and vegetation masks |
A file of a type the editor does not know is refused with a message. EXR is not supported; use HDR.
The import dialog
Section titled “The import dialog”Importing one file opens the Import dialog: where it goes (Change… picks another group),
what it will make, and its options. Several files at once, or a file more than one importer can
take (a .png can be a texture, a UI image or terrain), open Import Files instead, a list
with a checkbox and a choice of importer for each.
A model lists the meshes, materials, textures, skeleton, animation clips and collision it will make; clear any you do not want, or rename them. Its options:
| Option | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Textures | On | Import the model’s images as textures |
| Materials | On | Import its materials, with the textures wired in |
| Animations | On | Import its skeleton and animation clips |
| Generate prefab | On | Make a prefab of the model, to place in scenes |
| Generate scene | Off | Make a scene of the model |
| Generate collision | Off | Make a collision shape per mesh, and add colliders and a static body to the prefab |
| Generate LODs | On | Make lower detail levels for large static meshes (10,000 triangles and up); meshes with their own _LOD1, _LOD2 levels keep those |
| Root motion | Off | New clips move the character by their root’s travel and turn, and play in place |
| Convex collision | Off | Make that collision from simplified convex hulls (which can move) instead of exact triangle meshes |
A sound’s options are Stream (on by itself for sounds longer than 10 seconds or larger than 2 MB), Force mono, Loop, Trim trailing silence and Normalize.
Other file types import without options, some straight away with no dialog.
Where imported files go
Section titled “Where imported files go”The editor copies each file into the project’s Sources/ folder; a glTF’s textures keep their
folder beside it. Import the same file again (into the same group) to update it: the dialog
starts from your earlier choices, and a model’s generated prefab or scene is made again.
Cooking
Section titled “Cooking”The game does not load assets as you edit them: it loads their cooked form, in the project’s
Cooked/ folder. The editor cooks for you:
- after an import, the group it landed in;
- when you create an asset, or save one;
- when you open a page that needs something not cooked yet;
- when a file in
Sources/changes on disk (the editor checks every two seconds), so a model re-exported from your modelling tool updates by itself.
Build > Cook All cooks everything that changed, and Build > Rebuild All cooks everything again. The Assets panel’s right-click menu does the same for one asset (and what it needs) or one group. Cooking runs in the background; its progress is in the status bar and its messages in the Console.