Export to Unity

Step-by-step instructions to export a city from Blender and import it into Unity. This is not a tutorial on importing individual assets in Unity, but cities from SceneCity. Below the video I give you the correct FBX export options if you need to export your own 3d models from Blender to Unity.

Duration: 7m 28s

Pre-requisite knowledge needed: how to make a city with SceneCity

At 3.49: you can auto-fill all the asset fields if the prefabs in Unity have the same name as the Blender datablocks (meshes, objects collections...). Just click the new button, that you can't see in this older video.

Limitations

The following limitations apply:

  • Non-uniform scales, and negative scales are not supported

FBX export

To export a 3d model from Blender to Unity with FBX, you’ll have to use the following options:

FBX 7.4 Binary it’s a more recent format, and has better export options.

Selected objects Make sure you select your object first, before exporting. Otherwise the whole content of the .blend file will be exported, resulting in a big mess.

Scale: 1 Keep all your objects in Unity the same scale as in Blender.

Apply scalings: FBX units scale Important to have a 1-to-1 correspondance between Blender units and Unity units, in 3d space.

Forward: Z Forward in Unity is towards postive Z.

Up: Y Upwards in Unity is towards positive Y.

!EXPERIMENTAL! Apply transform With this option your model is transformed so that it fits natively in Unity’s coordinate system, and looks exactly like in Blender’s.

Other uses of the JSON exporter

The JSON export node takes a list of objects as input, that means you can use it to export not just cities but any complex asset or scene. For example let’s say you have a building in Blender, made of several objects / parts: different floor models, ground, facade and roof props etc… And you want that building in Unity.

With just two nodes like this, you can export any complex object / scene. Just input the parent object in the getter node.
  1. Export the parts individually in Unity with FBX, so that you keep full control on them (control the import options, make complex prefabs if you need etc…), and they can be reused in Unity if needed.
  2. Using the JSON exporter node, export the complex object layout and assemble it back in Unity very easily like in the tutorial.
  3. Finally make that composite building a prefab.

This is the method I used for all the included assets.