3D Asset Requirements

Whether you already have 3D assets for your products or will utilize Dopple’s team of artists to create the assets for you, this guide will detail the best practices and most important things to know to prepare your assets for use with Dopple.

File Formats

Dopple is able to work with many — but not all — file formats and convert them to runtime-optimized 3D models.

If you have existing 3D assets, refer to the list below to make sure your files are in the correct format for Dopple to work with. Our most preferred formats are listed first.

Formats We Accept

3D Assets

File Format	Description	Caveats & Potential Gotchas
`.glb` or `.gltf`	An industry-standard 3D file format designed by Khronos, for the efficient transmission and loading of 3D assets on web renderers. Used by Dopple's renderer. Other file formats will need to be converted to .glTF.	glTF requires a `.bin` file as well. Texture format is PNG or JPEG. Other image formats may increase export time due to compression methods used. Shader networks for materials not generally included in the glTF export information. Employing certain compression methods or settings on export may generate mesh errors (such as smoothing) or UV errors affecting material or texture application.
`.step` or `.stp`	A universal export format for CAD/Engineering files.	Extra CAD information may not be required but still included in the exported file anyway, which can lead to unnecessarily large files that are difficult to load. Compatibility issues may occur if older CAD versions are used.
`.fbx`	A universal 3D file format, preferred because it retains upon export from a native 3D app, any complex geometry data, animation data, and materials.	Employing custom export options may cause problems when imported into other software. Some baked maps/meshes may be incompatible as a result of deleted custom normals.
`.blend`	Native Blender 3D files. Dopple's team employs Blender for 3D modeling. If textures are meant to be included when providing a file for Dopple, please pack textures when saving the `.blend` file.	Some texture data may be embedded directly or excluded entirely. PBR materials should be metal/rough not specular. Base Color and Emissive color textures must be encoded in sRGB within material shaders/nodes.
`.obj`	A universal 3D file format, which generally only supports mesh data, but not animation. Material data is not included in the `.obj` format.	It will likely take our team more time to connect materials and textures. Material libraries usually do not translate between native apps. Custom normals are not included in the export information.

Image Assets

File Format	Description	Caveats & Potential Gotchas
`.png`	Lossless raster image used for high-quality textures. The only format supported in glTF (besides `.jpg`).	Power of 2 textures required for performance reasons (256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024, etc.). 16-bit textures will be converted to 8-bit. 24-bit or 32-bit textures are not supported.
`.svg` or `.ai`	Universal vector formats for high-quality paths and outlines of shapes.	Vector files are used as a base for clean graphics textures (such as for logos) but must be optimized and converted into a raster image such as PNG.
`.tga`	Standard raster image format for textures and materials.	Power of 2 textures required (256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024, etc.). Any non-PNG or -JPG images will be converted to 8-bit PNG or JPG images.
`.jpg`	Standard raster image format for textures and materials.	JPEG format is lossy. Transparency or alpha channel is not included/supported.
`.psd`	A native Photoshop 2D file format that preserves layers, masks and elements of images to allow for continued editing.	Uncompressed, this format can produce very large file sizes depending on color depth, image resolution or layered details, and is not directly usable in Dopple's renderer.
`.sbsar` or `.sbs`	Native Substance Painter and Substance Designer file formats.	PBR materials should be metal/rough not specular. Base Color and Emissive color textures must be encoded in sRGB.

Formats We Cannot Accept or Load

We wish we had licenses for all 3D software on the market! Unfortunately, we don’t, and are unable to load the following file formats. If you have files in these formats, please convert them to one of the formats listed above.

Revit files (.rvt)
Cinema 4D (.c4d)
Autodesk Maya (.ma or .mb)
AutoCAD (.dxf)

Additional Factors

These additional factors may slow down the process of creating 3D assets for your products, or may require additional work to be done by Dopple’s art team.

To help the process move as quickly as possible, try to address any issues listed below before sending your assets to Dopple.

Lack of a guide for naming, or CAD part names that are not descriptive (unless the organization is already included in the file given to us).
Incorrect world scale (can occur in any 3D format).
CAD files are missing names that correlate to product parts.
Material files are missing textures.
Texture information requires manual extraction from 3D files (traditionally GLB/glTF files).
Use of custom normals can cause extra work to resolve surface smoothing issues on geometry.
Relying on a custom shader or custom lighting in a rendering app (eg Keyshot, Corona, Cinema4D, V-Ray, Houdini) for surfaces makes material conversion very complex and can cause inconsistency between the pre-rendered look and the final runtime look on the webpage.
Hierarchy setups in meshes not named or labeled.
Textures that do not have a square 1:1 ratio (e.g. 2048x2048 pixels) will require a rework of the texture and UV assignment to be square.
Textures that don’t tile will require work to make them tileable.

Considerations for Augmented Reality

AR may have slight visual differences from 3D depending on the techniques used during art model creation, and due to the rendering technologies and the way they handle lighting. There may also be slight varying differences between iOS and Android, due to the different rendering engines used by each.

AR technologies, while currently limited in the consumer market, are improving quickly and the Dopple team is continually exploring methods to bring more visual consistency to the AR experience through cutting edge AR implementation.

AR software limitations not in our control include the web browser and mobile software standardization, which can affect visual parity in lighting, tone, and color acuity between the web experience and AR experience. This includes the step of the AR experience when you are launching AR, as this is powered by Google Model Viewer, not Dopple.