A tool for optimizing distant meshes in Unity

In this blog we'll create a Unity tool similar to our Unreal Engine plugin's Stand-In feature. It can be of great use to optimize objects in backgrounds of video games.

Scripting with Simplygon: Introduction

This is the first of a series of posts where we dig deeper into how to script with Simplygon. In this post we will explore four levels of scripting depth, discussing the advantages and disadvantages of each approach.

Vertex locks in Unity

In this blog we'll showcase how to use vertex locks in Unity to protect areas during optimization. We do this by editing the Simplygon scene after export from Unity.

Optimizing a modular character asset

Characters constructed of modular pieces can suffer from a problem after they are optimized. If the seams connecting the different parts are not matching each other, you can end up with visual artefacts. This blog post will show how you can use the modular seams feature of Simplygon to prevent these issues.

Introduction to micro-meshes for mesh compression

In this blog we will cover how to generate meshes using NVIDIAs new micro-mesh technology with Simplygon. We will create a batch processor for kit-bashed 3d scanned content indented to save disc space and optimize render performance.

Tight fitting impostors with minimal overdraw

Generate tight fitting impostor geometries around the opaque areas based on the input opacity map.

Customer Story: How Simplygon helped bringing Anno 1800 to PS5 and Xbox

Anno 1800 is a city-building game from Ubisoft Mainz that was released in 2019 for PC. It features a massive world with huge islands, dense forests and hundreds of unique and beautiful buildings that form anything from small villages to gigantic cities. There’s a wide range of assets, small fishing huts, noble four-storey-tall residences, breathtaking skyscrapers, factories, monuments and more. Thanks to its great initial success and continuing support of the live-game with DLCs and cosmetic DLCs, the decision was made that the title should launch on console, too. This was a huge undertaking but with Simplygon's help it turned into a great success.

Aggregation and remeshing - Evaluating the best method for proxy creation

After reading this blog post, you will have a framework to evaluate the best method to create proxies for your game. The post will compare the remeshing and aggregation methods for generating proxies for your asset collection, and delve deeper into how to decide which method is best for your game.

Introducing our high density reducer

In this post we will take a look at the new high density reducer we introduced in Simplygon 10.1. It's main intention is to be used with very high poly sculpted models and 3d scanned assets. We are going to compare the process quality and time to our ordinary reducer.

Accelerated remeshing using tessellated attributes

With Simplygon 10.0 we introduced tessellated attributes. In this post we'll showcase how to use them to speed up high resolution remeshings where we only care about surface details.

Getting started with custom Simplygon nodes in Houdini

This post will demonstrate how to access the Simplygon Python scripting API through our Houdini plugin. We are going to create a custom geometry node running Simplygon's reduction processor and pass parameters from Houdini's UI to it.

How to detect broken assets with scene validation

A lot of unexpected Simplygon behavior is caused by broken assets. This blog post is about how to use our scene validator to validate your assets.

Create a Blender Add-on for your Simplygon pipeline

In this post we will take the script created in previous blog post and turn it into a simple Blender Add-on with a basic user interface. That allows us to easily share it and makes it easy to use for non-programmers.

Optimizing 3D scans with Simplygon

Want to make those scanned assets more lightweight and ready to be used in your game or web application? This post will show how you can use Simplygon's remesher to produce heavily optimized versions of your scan data. It will also dig in on how to create a repeatable pipeline with which you can process large amounts of similar assets.

A simple Python remeshing

This post will give you a simple starting point for a remeshing script. We'll show how to turn an untextured glb asset, with material colors, into a textured proxy.

A simple reduction script in Unity

This example goes through how to setup a simple reduction script in Unity.

A simple reduction script in Blender

This blog will give you a simple starting point into scripting with Simplygon's Python API in Blender.

Visibility culling through generated cameras in Max

This (Python) example demonstrates how to use the Visibility Culling feature to remove geometry that is not visible from a specific set of cameras. The cameras are automatically generated by Simplygon based on a user-specified visibility volume / geometry.

Scripting a Python batch processor with distribution and progress observing

A crucial part of an automatic pipeline is the ability to distribute processes. With that you can complete large batches of assets much faster than if you're running them on a single machine. Distribution is a first class citizen of the Simplygon API, and in this post we will explore how to build a simple distribution over Simplygon Grid using Python.

Comparing material casting and aggregation

In Simplygon, you have two different options when it comes to transferring materials from source to optimized geometry. You can either cast the materials pixel for pixel, or merge the materials using the existing UVs. This makes for some interesting choices that we will explore in this post.

Culling geometry with camera volumes in Python script

In cases where you know from which angles an asset will be viewed, you can use that information to optimize the assets accordingly. For example, side scene geometry in the level that's only going to be seen from the playing field. Rather the building assets custom for that case, you could just use what you got and optimize it through cameras scattered in the player area. You can instruct Simplygon to cull anything fully occluded, but the visibility information can also be guide the reducer and the material caster to keep more where the geometry is most visible.

Simple remeshing scripting in 3ds Max 2021

This blog post will show you how to write a simple remeshing python script in 3ds Max 2021, using the new Physical Material system.

Working with Simplygon objects in Python

The Simplygon Python and C# APIs are wrappers around the core C++ library that contains all the algorithms and tools. This means that the ways of working with the API is inherited from the C++ library. Both in Python and C# there are some things that might seem odd at first, and this post will shed some light on these things.

Creating a physics mesh with Simplygon

When creating physics meshes, it's typically a good idea to optimize the original heavily, to make calculations cheaper. You would also want to keep material information in the optimized object, in order to spawn appropriate effects, play correct sounds etc. Combining the vertex color caster and remeshing is a great starting point to achieve super-simple geometry that checks the boxes for good physics meshes.

Running cascaded pipelines in script

Many scripted Simplygon workflows starts with a pipeline that is exported from one of our integrations. In this post will give you a very straight forward step by step on how to create a scripted optimization with cascaded pipelines.

Batching assets using headless Maya

Simplygon has a native plug-in within Maya that can handle exporting and importing assets. This is not only useful when you are working within the Maya UI, but can also come in handy if you want to batch process many assets and use the built-in functionality in Maya. In this post we will sho how you can set up a simple batch script that runs headless in Maya.

Visibility sphere

Using a visibility sphere can be a great way to save some polygons on assets that are not going to visible from all angles. In this article we will go through how you can use the SetCustomSphereCameraPath function in Simplygon to take away unnecessary polygons.

Volumetric culling

If you, like most others, are using kit bashing workflows when you are designing your levels volumetric culling can be really useful. This method will help you get rid of internal geometry, without affecting the exterior, nor require you to generate new materials. Apply it to assets that are built up from several small pieces and you will get rid of a lot of internal geometry, that's just hogging performance. In this post we will look deeper into this method.

Simple hollow shell script

In this post we will show you how to create a simple python script that generates a hollow shell. This can help you to optimize kitbashed content that typically is riddled with internal geometry which causes all kinds of performance hits. The resulting hollow shell will have all its internal geometry removed, while the object collection looks exactly the same from the outside. Perfect as a final step to clean up your creation and make it game ready.

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