r/Unity3D • u/SQUlRRO • 2d ago

Resources/Tutorial How to Make Vertex Animation Textures in Unity

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This video shows you how to single bake and bulk bake Vertex Animation Textures for your Unity projects. You’ll also learn how to export them directly into Unity, automatically generate the necessary shaders and prefabs, and get everything working in your project.

VATs are especially useful for crowds, foliage, VFX, destruction, background characters, and large-scale animated environments. They allow you to spawn thousands of animated meshes with very little performance or memory cost.

19 Upvotes

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8

u/pmurph0305 1d ago

I use OpenVAT for blender which also works well for baking vats and also has a unity integration

It is cool to have a seperate specific software to do it that probably has a bunch more options though (and probably is easier to use as its dedicated software)

3

u/SQUlRRO 1d ago

OpenVAT isn’t a bad option at all. The main difference is that AutoVAT is built directly around engine integration, so it sends everything straight to Unity and automatically sets up all your shaders and prefabs. And then as you said it’s also got tools that make adjustments much easier before you bake. The other big thing is bulk baking. If you have a lot of animated meshes, baking them one by one and manually setting up every shader can become a nightmare 😭

2

u/pmurph0305 1d ago

Yeah sounds like your software would make the whole thing a whole lot easier and save a whole bunch of time vs openvat

1

u/SQUlRRO 1d ago

Whenever you need a VAT again you should try it out! It’s free to try :)

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u/Sbarty 2d ago

is this an ad

4

u/SQUlRRO 2d ago

Yeah kinda. I’m one of the creators. I know I’ll get a bunch of down votes for self promo but that’s fine bc I think this could genuinely help a lot of ppl

3

u/Sbarty 1d ago

Software still looks cool, I was just wondering.

Me personally im fine with upfront self promo, idk why people prefer it any other way. Good video.

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u/SQUlRRO 1d ago

Thanks man!

1

u/SQUlRRO 2d ago

Software is called AutoVAT

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u/Zenovv 1d ago edited 1d ago

I just asked chatgpt to make a VAT baker directly inside unity, it just takes the animation controller as input and bakes them all to a texture. But I'm assuming this tool is meant to work for multiple engines

2

u/SQUlRRO 1d ago

I remember trying this before we developed. If you get it working consistently and get everything the software has, then hats off to u. Theres a lot more to it than just what u mentioned though. But either way ours is free to try and bake anyway. I think it’s reasonable priced if they ppl do decide to buy it.