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How To - Importing Assets within acceptable size limits

A guide to preparing and importing assets into Dungeon Alchemist while keeping them within acceptable size limits.

The Issue

With the addition of Dungeon Alchemist's Asset Importer, it has allowed anyone to import 3D models. Unfortunately, a vast majority of these users blindly import the 3D models without any knowledge of the size (megabytes) and the detrimental issues this causes for those who download these models from the Workshop to use in their maps. There tends to be three major sites most models are downloaded from: CGTrader, Sketchfab, and Turbosquid. Now, with the addition of AI sites like Meshy and many others, this has added to the potential for issues.

Dungeon Alchemist Recommends

According to the Dungeon Alchemist developers (devs), they have recommended a top asset import size of 25 megabytes. However, this is not an absolute but a recommendation. With this being said, let's get into the ways you can reduce an asset (model) size so it comes in under, if not close to, the recommended 25 MB size.

Three Common Methods for Reducing Model Size in Blender

  1. Texture Compression - The ability to adjust the texture size of an image from 8k (8192x8192), 4k (4096x4096), 2k (2048x2048), 1k (1024x1024), 512 (512x512 pixels) and 256 (256x256 pixels).
  2. Decimation - The Decimate modifier in Blender reduces a mesh's polygon (face/vertex) count while aiming to preserve its overall shape, acting as a powerful tool for optimization, creating low-poly assets, or lowering memory usage. It helps speed up viewport performance and render times by simplifying complex geometry.
  3. LOD (Level of Detail) - in Blender is an optimization technique used primarily in game development to create multiple versions of a 3D model, ranging from high-poly to low-poly.

We will explore all three of these in better detail with how this can help with your Blender model to Dungeon Alchemist.

1. Texture Image Size within Blender

In Blender all models (assets) will have a texture applied to it.

  • A texture is just an image file attached to a mesh (asset)
  • Quite a few meshes have image textures that are usually about 2k on average. For Dungeon Alchemist this is overkill.
  • To help cut down on file size resize your textures down to 1k or 512 preferably.
  • It is preferable to save as a JPEG vs PNG. Converting a 4K PNG to a 1K JPEG reduces the image's total pixel count by (75%) and drastically shrinks the file size.
Mesh without any textures (images)
Mesh without any textures (images)
Mesh with a texture(s) applied to mesh
Mesh with a texture(s) applied to mesh

Nightvision's addon has a free texture converter built in.

2. Decimation

The Decimate modifier in Blender reduces a mesh's polygon (face/vertex) count while preserving its overall shape.

3. LOD (Level of Detail)

LOD in Blender is an optimization technique used primarily in game development to create multiple versions of a 3D model, ranging from high-poly to low-poly.