Project Sunrise | Prepare meshes for upload

Last updated on Nov 1, 2024

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1. Prepare meshes for upload
2. Mesh and Upload restrictions
3. Export files for Sunrise
Assets
Projects
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Interface
Technical support

Upload formats

Project Sunrise requires that meshes are uploaded with materials and textures in the same file. This means that Sunrise only supports formats that are able to include texture and geometry information in a single file.

If your files are not in an already supported format, you can use Adobe software like Substance 3D Stager or other 3D applications like Blender to package your content into a single supported file.

Note:

A full list of supported formats is available here.

Project Sunrise automatic optimization

Generally, web viewers and devices used for viewing AR content have limited resources like memory or processing power. As a result, highly detailed, unoptimized models can cause performance issues when viewed on some devices. To prevent this, Project Sunrise automatically optimizes uploaded meshes, and uses the optimized file for web 3D and AR.

Despite Sunrises automatic optimization steps, it can still be useful to manually prepare files to ensure the best results. Below are some best practices to get the most out of Sunrise and your models.

Avoid using multiple materials whenever possible. In general, each material requires an individual "draw call". Draw calls are slow operations, and can impact performance heavily on slower systems like mobile devices.

To improve performance, try to use a single material.

Note:

Triplanar projection is currently not supported by Project Sunrise. Assets and meshes that are textured with triplanar projection need to have the triplanar data baked into regular UV based textures for use in Sunrise.

In general smaller texture sizes are better for performance. However, smaller texture sizes also mean less detail, so with textures, try to hit a balance between performance and quality. We recommend a resolution of 2048x2048 as this is usually enough to provide a high level of detail in areas that need it, while not resulting in a very large file size.

Note:

Texel density refers to the number of texture pixels that appear over a given surface area on a mesh. Inconsistent texel density can mean that some areas of the mesh have a very high level of detail (many texture pixels), while other areas have a very low level of detail (few texture pixels).

In some cases using a different texel density is useful, such as ensuring that the label on a product appears crisp and detailed. But if texel density isn't managed, it can result in noticeable differences in quality on different parts of the same mesh. To avoid issues with texel density, we recommend starting with a consistent density across the mesh, and adjusting individual parts later if necessary.

Most 3D applications with the ability to modify UVs have a function to achieve a consistent texel density. In Blender, you can use "Average island scale". In Maya, the Layout function for UVs has options to manage texel density.

Generally, it's a good idea to ensure that models are made up of quads or triangles before upload to Project Sunrise. During the optimization pass, Sunrise automatically triangulates the final optimized version of assets, and this step can result in unexpected geometry if many sided polygons (also known as n-gons) exist in the original geometry.

Sunrise maintains units of scale from uploaded files, regardless of file format. For example, if the mesh is authored in meters, any Sunrise-optimized files will also be in meters.

GLB files only support meters as a unit of scale.
USDz can support arbitrary units of scale, or even leave units of scale undefined. The USD file format defines a metersPerUnit property that Sunrise uses. If this property isn't set, Sunrise will default to centimeters.
FBX supports a selection of units of scale. FBX defaults to centimeters, but Sunrise will use whichever unit of scale is configured for the file.

Some of your files may contain multiple meshes. For example, some assets may have both the product and the container that the product ships in. For these assets, we recommend combining the meshes in the file before uploading to Project Sunrise.

In Blender, you can achieve this with the Join operation. In Autodesk Maya, use the Combine operation.

In some cases, you may have full 3D scenes surrounding the product, such as a fully realised dining room for a dining table. Avoid using large scenes when possible to maximize performance. For AR and 3D use cases, we recommend only using the product itself. This improves performance, and also allows the users to focus on the product.

Transparency is necessary for many products, both for packaging, and the products themselves. If possible, try to avoid using meshes with multiple layers of transparency. For example, a crystal chandelier.

Multiple layers of transparency can cause performance issues, as the processor needs to determine the correct order of the transparent materials for each pixel. The more transparent layers on a given pixel, the more work the processor has to do.

For devices with slower processors, this can severely impact performance.

While Project Sunrise has a file size upload limit of 500MB, it's strongly recommended to avoid uploading files anywhere near that size. Large file sizes mean longer loading time for users, and are more likely to crash the browser.

Large files are also generally more complex, and are an indicator that a file should be simplified before upload.

Sunrise recommends keeping optimized file sizes less than 3MB in general.

Upload limits

There are some limits on what you can upload to project Sunrise, such as maximum file sizes. A full list of constraints is available here.

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Project Sunrise | Prepare meshes for upload

Upload formats

Project Sunrise automatic optimization

Upload limits

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Students save over 70%.

Project Sunrise | Prepare meshes for upload

Upload formats

Project Sunrise automatic optimization

Materials

Textures

Texel density

Topology

Polygon count

Quads and triangles

Scale

Multi-part objects

Complex scenes

Metallic and Refraction

Transparency

Animations

File size

Upload limits

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