Game Optimization Tips
Mesh
Depending of your game you might use only lower LOD levels. Most packs comes with 3 LOD levels.
It is already setup to use LOD0 as max quality.
It works great on a FPS game, but a top down game might not require such a mount of details due to the camera distance and screen resolution.
The basic rule is use the lowest LOD possible to get better performance in your game.
How to setup:
Place the character on the closest position to the camera that will be seen in the game. Click on the LODs and see if you notice any visual change between them.
Choose what will be the highest LOD. Delete any higher quality LOD. E.g. LOD1 is max, then delete LOD0
Adjust the LODs distance on the "LOD Group"
Textures:
As above, you should always use the lowest texture size to save memory.
On the setup above, check what is the minimum texture size that gives your minimum required visual quality to your game. (you can use other assets as reverences)
Some packs are not suitable for tiny textures, but Polygonmaker packs are made to ensure that they can work with very small textures without quality loss.
How to setup:
On the Texture "Inspector" change the "Max Size" and hit apply to check different texture sizes.
Shader
Some games have serious performance loss for the use of unnecessarily expensive shaders.
Normal map, PBR, Specular are not mandatory on good looking games. Please have a look on Diablo 3. Still gorgeous several years after his release and does not use Normal maps in most assets.
On the same setup above do some tests with simpler shaders such as mobile ones. It is surprising how many games could use simpler shaders without any quality loss.
Polygonamker supply a mobile texture, that is an modified version of the Albedo, but with painted details to be used with simple shaders (Old school texturing).
Some good results have been achieved using this mobile texture with PBR shader, when it is needed some more detailing.
How to setup:
Same setup above: Start with simple shaders like Mobile Diffuse (Or transparent if the mesh requires)
Sometimes when the characters is small on the screen even transparent can be turned off.
It the light is very subtle, a unlit shader can looks very good. (But using the albedo texture can make it look very flat, make sure you change to the mobile one)
If in your game the character will appears on several light conditions , make sure of testing on different ones.
Materials:
Extra materials means extra "draw calls". Even though it is not a killer issue anymore. This can cause issues in big games.
You might use some script that combine meshes that uses the same material to save some extra "draw calls"
How to setup:
Polygonmaker is an art studio and we cannot guarantee an good tool to do it. But our packs are optimized to use as few materials as possible and allowing a good character customization.
But if this tool still required please google it on the Unity forums, there are plenty of this tool available.
Others
Remember that in most games, what destroy the "Graphics" are:
-Lack of fx
-Bad animations and mechanics
-Bad physics
-Bad environment
-And most important: Bugs
One good tip is: Don´t get over excited with the character qualities. Environment represents most of the art on the screen, while character is sometimes just a tiny part of it. So don´t be afraid of reducing their quality.
Just have a look on existing games, not from a player perspective, but with a "developer eyes". The existing games aren´t as pretty as we think they are. :)
You can get surprising results with this in mind.
