Resources for people getting started (ASSETS)

AssetSplash

I am often asked for resources or resource sites by people just coming into the world of Unity and game development. When someone is just getting started they won’t have relationships with professional artists and probably lack the funds to pay them if they did. What this post is, is a quick primer on where to find resources and how to collaborate.

The very first place I’d suggest we go to is the Unity Asset Store. We can browse the Asset Store from our web client: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com or we can browse the Asset Store from within the Unity Editor by choosing Window/Asset Store or CMD/CTRL + 9 as the hotkey:

Window-Asset-Store

The asset store is great for many reasons. This is how Unity Technologies distributes its assets, many of which are free, including the  spaceship assets shown in the image above and the title image. More importantly, this is a portal for the Unity Community to distribute the assets they have created.

Screen Shot 2013-10-08 at 07.54.01

The Assets Store categorizes all of the assets available. We can browse for Models, Textures, Sounds, Animations... For me, some of the most important assets are Scripting and Editor Extensions. Finding a quick model or a great texture for our game or prototype is fantastic. However,  technical solutions for, say, touch gestures, Facebook integration, automated builds of an iOS app that are seamlessly uploaded to TestFlightApp.com… priceless! There are systems we will need in our games or to enhance our editor experience. These could take us days, weeks or more to create. The asset store can give this to us with the click of a button.

Many, if not most, assets on the Asset Store are for a fee. That being said, there are also may many free resources, and the many of the assets that are available for a fee are available for a very affordable price.

Screen Shot 2013-10-08 at 08.04.56

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Screen Shot 2013-10-11 at 17.52.21

When it comes to the community, we cannot overlook the Wiki. At the time of posting, the wiki is a community driven, community supported resource. It has been around since the very beginnings of Unity and contains a wealth of information and scripts: http://wiki.unity3d.com Remember to “pay if forward”. If we use assets from the wiki, we must try to contribute some time back to the wiki by posting scripts and tips and updates to the assets we do use.

Lastly, I have a list of sites that I have compiled, where we can find assets for out games. Again, some are free and some are for a fee, but all should be affordable. Please do be aware of the licenses that these assets come with. Some free assets come with strict non-commercial license agreements. Others come with attribution required. If you are in doubt about a license agreement, don’t use the asset until you have sought professional legal advice.

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3D modelling packages:
     (not necessarily assets, but worth posting… try making some assets yourself!)
http://www.blender.org (Blender is FREE!)
http://www.luxology.com/trymodo (Modo)
http://www.autodesk.com/products/autodesk-3ds-max/free-trial (3DS Max)
http://www.autodesk.com/products/autodesk-maya/free-trial (Maya)

Art Editing Packages
     (not necessarily assets, but worth posting… try making some assets yourself!)
http://www.gimp.org (GIMP is FREE!)
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopfamily.html (Photoshop)

General Unity (tips, tricks and scripts) Sites:
http://unitygems.com (also available in French)
http://unitypatterns.com

General Asset Sites:
http://opengameart.org (Textures, Music, Sound Effects, Models, etc.)
http://hub.commonly.cc

Textures:
http://texturelib.com
http://textureshighres.com
http://cgtextures.com
http://subtlepatterns.com
http://www.handpaintedtextures.com (Hand Painted!)

Materials:
http://www.crazybump.com (Normal Mapping from Textures)
http://www.allegorithmic.com (“Substances”)

Models:
http://www.blendswap.com (Blender Meshes)
http://www.dexsoft-games.com (Models, Rigged & Animated Characters)
http://www.turbosquid.com (Models)
http://3drt.com (Models)

Animations:
http://www.mixamo.com

Typefaces & Fonts
http://www.fontsquirrel.com
http://losttype.com
https://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com
http://lostandtaken.com
http://fontfabric.com
http://www.dafont.com
http://www.1001fonts.com
http://www.1001freefonts.com (SEE NOTE Re: Potential issues with this site in comments below!)

Sounds:
http://www.bfxr.net (Sound Generator)
http://www.freesound.org
http://www.soundrangers.com
http://www.soundsnap.com

Music:
http://freemusicarchive.org
http://incompetech.com
http://www.wolfram.com/legal/terms/wolfram-tones.html (CHECK LICENSE!)

Icons:
http://game-icons.net
http://iconmonstr.com
http://thenounproject.com
http://www.entypo.com
http://simpleicons.org
http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/

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If you know of any additional resources or resource sites that can be added to this list, please leave them in the comments and I will update this post with that new information as soon as possible.

10 Comments

Troy Johnson

about 10 years ago Reply

For type I prefer Font Squirrel to DaFont since Font Squirrel vets the type for quality, and there are fewer (if any) "for personal use only" typefaces loaded to it. http://www.fontsquirrel.com/ A couple other good sites are Lost Type http://losttype.com/ and The League of Moveable Type. https://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/

Adam

about 10 years ago Reply

Troy! Thanks for the links. Somewhere I've got a bookmark for fontsquirrel that I completely forgot about, thank you for jogging the memory. The other two I'd never encountered, so a second thank you! I've updated the post with these and a few other URLs. (^_^)

Jan

about 10 years ago Reply

Hello :) I'd add http://www.fontspring.com/free also and remove one that 1001freefonts.com - I found that a lil bit suspicious that free for commercial and not commercial use font: http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Vitamin (The fonts are provided free for personal or commercial use, however they may not be redistributed, sold or modified without the permission of Jakob Fischer / pizzadude.dk.) is being sold for 20$ if you want to use it commercial here: www dot 1001freefonts dot com/Vitamin.php I wrote to author about it cause they didn't even give him credit... I guess all of those fonts are free both for commercial and non-commercial use but owner of that site is probably getting huge profit from this... especially that site name is similar to another good website with fonts http://www.1001fonts.com/ :)

Adam

about 10 years ago Reply

Hmm... Good Point about the 1001freefonts. I'd rather not remove it, but I'll flag it with caution. This is as much to warn people as to advertise it. If we say nothing, then people can find it without knowing there is an issue. Thanks for the link to http://www.1001fonts.com. Added!

Adam

about 10 years ago Reply

I just found this site: http://www.handpaintedtextures.com Looks great!

Jonathan Weinberger

about 10 years ago Reply

Hi, I'd like to add my youtube series to the list. I'm subZeroGaming on the forums. http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/175410-Finally-an-interactive-tutorial-series-that-WILL-teach-you-C-for-Unity3D

Adam

about 10 years ago Reply

Interesting! Tutorials! I hadn't thought of them as assets... But maybe I should do a post on learning resources for new users. I'll leave this link in the comments until I can find it a good home. Thanks for the link!

Adam

about 10 years ago Reply

A few new resource sites that I have not put into the main post yet. These are primarily stock photo sites, but could be useful. http://www.freepik.com (web-mining with links, but useful - check licenses) http://www.istockphoto.com http://www.stockvault.net http://www.gettyimages.co.uk http://www.mayang.com/textures/ http://www.textureking.com http://subtlepatterns.com http://www.grsites.com

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