In this tutorial we examine how to export a model from Blender to Unity 3D and import it into a game. The tutorial also demonstrates how to bake a normal map and a color map from a highpoly model to the lowpoly counterpart, real-time display of the color/normal maps in the Blender viewport with GLSL shading, and real-time updating of assets in Unity.
Note: Unity 3D is a free-to-use (for most things) game engine that is available here: http://unity3d.com/
Kernon, leave poor Jonathon alone when he is making a tutorial!!
Very good!
OBS: Normal map in Unit is inverted.
ROTFL, that was kind of funny, sorry. I had no idea you were in the middle of a tutorial. I usually close Skype completely when recording.
Ha it’s okay! One of these days I will actually remember to close Skype
Nice tutorial, I’ll have to check out Unity some time. I used to love to make levels using the Unreal Editor.
Excellent Tutorial,
I guess the workflow is the same in the Blender Game Engine?
And yeah we love Skype
Hey. Doesn’t unity import blender files directly? I do just that and it works the same. You doesn’t have to export it to collada or anything. Or is there a difference?
I was not aware of this until you mentioned it. Unity does in fact support importing .blend files directly. This is very cool, however one advantage I can see is the ability to export Collada files with only the active selection. When you import a .blend Unity brings in all of the lights, cameras, meshes, etc. That being said you could also just save a separate .blend with only the necessary objects. I will have to look into this further as I hope to follow up this tutorial with how to bring in an animated character model to Unity.
oh this would be great
I’m working on a character animation right now and I intend to put it into unity project with some scenery set up earlier. Never tried getting anything animated in blender into unity3d, so tutorial about that would rock indeed 
Unity imports .blend files natively but you are perfectly right about that you get all the stuff that’s in it, which can be quite annoying.
There’s a trick: create another .blend file and link from your main .blend file only those assets that you need in Unity (the low box in this case). Import that file to Unity. This way each time you change the model in the main file, I will be automatically updated. I didn’t test this extensively, but it seems to work fine.
Hi Jonathan, thanks for the new tut that is great as usual. I want to mention that you can also export to Unity3D in .fbx with the exporter that lets you choose what you export or not from your blend scene ( copying image files and exporting animations etc…). There was a bug with the exporter for 2.49 but there is a fix. I find it useful if you work with a team that doesn’t necessarily use Blender
Keep up the good work.
Bernard
Isn’t that funny!!
I have play wit Unity for a week, I have manage to import animation from Blender to Unity
and
Today I said to myself:
Ok I am going to use the afternoon to import a textured model from Blender to Unity.
But before I start the afternoon, I go the blender website for the News on this Wonderful software,
and what do I find out:
You have done a tutorial and save me hour fiddling around.
If I am not lucky…
Ok I am going to check it out.
Thank you very much Jonathan
For those who want to know more about Unity3D (including Jonathan)
check out these wonderful ressources :
http://www.learnmesilly.com/index.php?currentPage=unity_lesson1
http://ethicalgames.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/the-unity-3d-tutorials-new-easier-to-find/
and of coure those available on the Official site:
http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/video/
Nice tutorial! But can’t you drag blend files right into Unity, instead of exporting and importing collada files?
I look forward to future tutorials! (could you do one using the free Unreal Development Kit, UDK, Engine?)
As I soon found out after publishing this, yes you can directly import .blend files. However, there are advantages to exporting to collada, fbx, etc as you may choose to export only the selected objects rather than importing your entire scene into Unity. You could also just save a separate .blend with only the necessary objects.
Out of curiosity… Why did you choose to do a tutorial on Unity? I just recently heard about it and was wondering why you chose it. Is it just better than the blender game engine? Type of programming language?
Out of curiosity… Why did you choose to do a tutorial on Unity? I just recently heard about it and was wondering why you chose it. Is it just better than the blender game engine? Type of programming language?
Out of curiosity… Why did you choose to do a tutorial on Unity? I just recently heard about it and was wondering why you chose it. Is it just better than the blender game engine? Type of programming language?
Out of curiosity… Why did you choose to do a tutorial on Unity? I just recently heard about it and was wondering why you chose it. Is it just better than the blender game engine? Type of programming language?
Out of curiosity… Why did you choose to do a tutorial on Unity? I just recently heard about it and was wondering why you chose it. Is it just better than the blender game engine? Type of programming language?
Out of curiosity… Why did you choose to do a tutorial on Unity? I just recently heard about it and was wondering why you chose it. Is it just better than the blender game engine? Type of programming language?
Out of curiosity… Why did you choose to do a tutorial on Unity? I just recently heard about it and was wondering why you chose it. Is it just better than the blender game engine? Type of programming language?
Out of curiosity… Why did you choose to do a tutorial on Unity? I just recently heard about it and was wondering why you chose it. Is it just better than the blender game engine? Type of programming language?
Out of curiosity… Why did you choose to do a tutorial on Unity? I just recently heard about it and was wondering why you chose it. Is it just better than the blender game engine? Type of programming language?
I was split between several engines: Unity, Torque and Unreal. I like Unity and Unreal as they are free to use and so are more accessible to more people. You can expect to see an Unreal tutorial soon as well hopefully.
Out of curiosity… Why did you choose to do a tutorial on Unity? I just recently heard about it and was wondering why you chose it. Is it just better than the blender game engine? Type of programming language?
Well, not to say the tutorial is only about Unity, great blender work as well! :3
Well, not to say the tutorial is only about Unity, great blender work as well! :3
Well, not to say the tutorial is only about Unity, great blender work as well! :3
Well, not to say the tutorial is only about Unity, great blender work as well! :3
Well, not to say the tutorial is only about Unity, great blender work as well! :3
Well, not to say the tutorial is only about Unity, great blender work as well! :3
Well, not to say the tutorial is only about Unity, great blender work as well! :3
Well, not to say the tutorial is only about Unity, great blender work as well! :3
Well, not to say the tutorial is only about Unity, great blender work as well! :3
Well, not to say the tutorial is only about Unity, great blender work as well! :3
Awesome. I’m pretty stoked on this tutorial.
Hey Jonathan, great to see a tutorial on exporting from blender to a game engine
Good to know about the bias option for baking normal maps … and nice and quick GI rig
I’m currently also messing around with unity and so far really liking it.
Regarding .dae/.fbx/.blend, what I found most useful is to save as .blend and then in unity create a prefab that only uses the object from that import which I need (sometimes also adding extra components, RigidBody etc.) This allows me to just save the .blend file and then have unity do it’s magic and the prefab will be updated correctly.
This video was very informative. Thank you. but there is another game engine that went friendly for small indie teams as well. That’s the Unreal Engine 3.X with UDK. Is there any plans to make a tutorial about how to get content made in blender over to the UDK?
Either way this one was awesome. thanks you for the great tutorials. and keep up the good work.
3DBuzz.com has just released a set of videos on using Unity. They can be viewed here:
http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/sv_video.php?v=3611
This tutorial helped alot, thanks. But while looking through other tutorial about creating a high poly mesh then a low poly mesh and baking a normal from the high poly model and applying it to the low poly model, how do i get the models to unwrap the same so they relate well? Sorry I’m still new to all this game stuff. Thanks
Basically, this is what I’d do. I’d model the low poly version of the object I want to be normal mapped, UV unwrap it, then duplicate it. To turn the duplicated model into a “high poly” model, I’d subdivide it a few times, and then sculpt in whatever details I need. That way, the “high poly” (subdivided) model is unwrapped in the same way as the low poly one.
hey i just thought i would put a tut i did up, similar but it just shows you most of the problems you can get when importing via the fbx exporter.
http://vimeo.com/9798695
Kudos from one brainiac to another.
You can count me in for a Digg. Thanks for posting this on your site!
Hey, does anyone know if this feature is available in 2.5 yet? It’s there in the UI, but I’m getting really bizarre (mostly gray with a lot of red and yellow) results from baking.
nah the export options havent been setup yet ay. they will work on getting blender working before getting it to be compatible with other software.
Just a general question here, when i import my .blend into unity and then place it in my scene its all grey, no i noticed in your tutorial that it was imported with 2 subfolders (materials and textures) i dont get those folders when i import it. i cant manage to get any textures on my barrel, when i do put a material to the barrel then a texture to the material it just turns brown it doesnt actually show the texture that i placed in the 2d window for textures, this has really been driving me crazy… any ideas?
>.< i didnt even want to watch this video until i saw some comments before i started the video saying there was some fail talking on skype during the vid =P so i decided to watch all 25 minutes just for that. and i wasnt that dissapointed
a nice failure at that. 
You mentioned something I didn’t quite understand….It sounded like you said “you can model it to fit using Rutopo”….What is “Rutopo” ?
PLS MORE UNITY TUTORIALS!! PLS!!
Peco1231 this is a site for blender tuts if you want unity tuts go to the unity site
http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/video/
hmm bad link the guy sounds like a robot and says nothing interesting on the first tutorial.
DUDE. UNITY COOKIE. ARROWS BESIDE BLENDER COOKIE LOGO. “UNITY COOKIE” BUTTON. CLICK. BOOM.
Hi, just wondering…. is there anyway to import assets without requiring to load the textures in Unity?
For example, you setup the normal map and diffuse map in Unity because it wasn’t set. Is there a way to simply add the model with the textures already setup (based on what was setup in Blender)?
Any way we can get an updated version of this tutorial for the new Unity Site with a newer version of Blender?
Jeremy Deighan
This tutorial covers everything you need to know for exporting basically; the main difference is just that you wouldn’t have animations on your object: http://cgcookie.com/unity/2011/12/05/exporting-characters-from-blender/
-Jonathan
Good call Jonathan, Thanks! I’ll check it out~
Jeremy Deighan
The low-poly mesh is as large as the high-poly mesh. I’m building a plane to import it into unity 3D. How do you lower the poly count on it ? And does it stay equal in size when you lower the polycount on it ? Also, What is the best way to put detail in a subdevided mesh. Should I carve detail into it (like wing panels and screws) or is that the wrong approach ?
Forgive me if I’m asking obvious questions, I’m making my way through the whole blender/unity3D maze.