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All Systems Red — 3D Asset Pipeline

Concept art to an accepted in-game asset. The top lane is what Guanacito does by hand today. Each lane below it is an automation alternative for the same stages, with links to the services. Snapshot as of 2026-09-21; nothing below is set up yet, and every automation option is a candidate to test, not a decision.

Click any box or labelled arrow for what it is, how it's used, and links to the service. Tab and Enter work too; Esc closes.

manual, in progress automation option to test needs hardware or a licence check shared step / gate

1 · From concept to a playable asset

1 · Concept 2 · Base mesh 3 · Retopo + UV 4 · Texture / PBR 5 · Rig 6 · Animate 7 · Unity import MANUAL Guanacito in progress HOSTED SERVICES automation SCRIPTED Claude Code automation SELF-HOSTED open models Concept art + turnaround Guanacito draws front, side and back views on a plain background. Every lane starts from these images. Sculpt / block-out Blender · ZBrush Retopo + UV unwrap clean quads, unwrap Texture / PBR paint or bake maps Rig armature + weights Animate keyframed cycles Image → 3D service mesh + UVs + PBR textures in one pass remesh / retopology options built in Meshy · Tripo · Rodin (Hyper3D) Auto-rig service Humanoid: Mixamo, AccuRIG Four-legged: Meshy, Tripo Multi-limb (beta): Meshy Smart Rig Motion library Meshy: 600+ presets Mixamo, ActorCore humanoid, 4-legged no multi-leg found Blender, driven by Claude Code retopo, UVs, armature, batch export community MCP bridge, or headless scripts Procedural leg IK Unity Animation Rigging: legs step by themselves Self-hosted open models Hunyuan3D 2.1 · TRELLIS.2 needs a 24 GB GPU: rent one, or skip hybrid: AI base mesh, manual finish hybrid: AI base mesh, scripted cleanup mesh → Blender cleanup or auto-rig it or library motions all lanes end here then, always: scale · URP Lit colliders · LODs .meta files kept Drag-in FBX · GLB Plugin push Meshy · Tripo → URP Lit Import presets an editor script applies the same settings to all Flash-lit test dark scene, one light: does the shape read? Playtest gate Winds plays it: feel + readability Accept commit via Git LFS + provenance log entry If it fails, send it back silhouette wrong → stage 2 (base mesh) bends badly → stage 3 (topology) or 5 (weights) looks wrong under a flash → stage 4 (texture) legs slide → stage 6 (animation / IK) Rework at the stage that broke it, not by patching downstream. Provenance log one row per generated asset: tool · plan tier · input image · date rights depend on the plan tier Where automation stops Automation can plausibly cover • base mesh + UVs + PBR from a concept image • auto-rig: humanoid, four-legged, maybe multi-limb (beta) • library motions for humanoid and four-legged • GLB import and URP material mapping • repeatable Blender cleanup via scripts • legs that step themselves (procedural IK) Still needs a person • art direction: does it match the vision? • multi-leg creature rigs (Smart Rig is a beta, untested) • topology that bends cleanly at joints • silhouette-critical hero shapes • final polish and the flash-lit playtest • deciding what to generate vs. hand-model Everything dashed or dotted is a candidate to test, not a decision.
Every lane starts from Guanacito's concept images and ends in the same Unity import, flash-lit test and playtest. The alternative lanes replace stages 2–6 wholesale, or, through the hybrid arrows, hand an AI-made base mesh back to the manual or scripted lane for cleanup and rigging. The stage most worth automating first is the base mesh; the one least likely to automate for this bestiary is the rig.

2 · Which lane for which asset — starting hypotheses to test

Asset typeTry firstWhy, and the caveat
Environment piecesvent forests, chimneys, crust organisms, bloom matsImage → 3D service, light manual cleanupStatic, so no rig is needed. Check silhouette and topology against the concept.
Pod parts and propsTest both: a service versus hand-modelledHard-surface shapes may need clean edges. How well the services handle them is not verified.
Ground creaturesarthropodoidsHybrid: service base mesh, manual retopo and rig, procedural leg IKAuto-rig templates cover humanoid and four-legged bodies. Smart Rig (beta) claims multi-limbed characters but is untested for this.
Aerial creaturesfloaters, gliders, sky whalesHybrid; test Smart RigNo standard template for wings or membranes. Mostly seen as silhouettes in flashes, so shape matters more than surface detail.
Any humanoid figureMixamo or AccuRIGFree auto-rig and motion libraries, but only if the design is actually bipedal.

3 · Services and what I could check

ServiceWhat it automatesTerms, as checkedLink
MeshyImage → 3D (mesh, UVs, PBR), remesh, auto-rig (Humanoid, Quadruped Dog, Smart Rig beta), 600+ animation presets, official Unity pluginFree: 100 credits/month, models CC BY 4.0 (commercial use with credit). Pro: 1,000 credits/month, you own the assets.from Meshy's pricing and Unity pagesmeshy.ai
TripoImage → 3D, Smart Mesh, AI texturing, retopology, auto-rigging and animation; a bridge to Blender, 3ds Max, Unity, Unreal, Maya, Godot and ZBrushFree: 200 credits/month (about 13 models), public models, non-commercial use. Pro: $20/month billed annually, 3,000 credits (about 200 models), private models and commercial use. Max: $90/month billed annually, 25,000 credits.from Tripo's pricing page (checked directly)tripo3d.ai
Rodin (Hyper3D)Image → 3D with UVs and PBR textures; APIGenerate free and pay only for results you confirm (direct credits $1.5 each). Creator: $30/month ($24 billed yearly). Business: $120/month ($96 billed yearly). The page says paid plans include "broader export and usage rights" but doesn't spell out a commercial license for Rodin assets, so read its Terms of Use before shipping anything.from Hyper3D's pricing page (checked directly)hyper3d.ai
Hunyuan3D 2.1Image → 3D, self-hostedLicense does not apply in the EU, UK or South Korea; outputs can't be used to train other AI models; a separate license is needed above 1M monthly users. Needs a large GPU.from Tencent's LICENSE filegithub.com
TRELLIS.2Image → 3D with PBR GLB output, self-hostedMIT license. Requires an NVIDIA GPU with at least 24 GB.from Microsoft's READMEgithub.com
MixamoAuto-rig and animation libraryFree with an Adobe account. Bipedal humanoids only.Adobe FAQ and third-party reportsmixamo.com
AccuRIG (Reallusion)Auto-rig for humanoids, including fantastical ones; ActorCore motion libraryFree.Reallusion's site and CG Channel coverageactorcore.reallusion.com
BlenderManual modelling, retopology, UVs and rigging; scriptable, including headlessFree and open source.blender.org
Blender MCP (community)Lets Claude drive Blender; can also fetch from Poly Haven and Sketchfab and generate with Hyper3D Rodin or Hunyuan3DMIT. Its Python-execution tool runs arbitrary code and the local socket has no authentication.from the project's READMEgithub.com
Unity Animation RiggingIK and aim constraints, the basis for procedural leg animationPackage version 1.3.1 lists compatibility with 2023.2 and later.from Unity's docsdocs.unity3d.com
Unity glTFastImport of GLB and glTF into UnityRegisters as the default importer for .gltf and .glb.from Unity's docsdocs.unity3d.com

What to do first

  1. Agree a hand-off format with Guanacito: a turnaround sheet (front, side, back) on a plain background for each asset meant for generation.
  2. Start the provenance log before generating anything, since rights depend on the plan tier.
  3. Run a small test after Unity is installed: three concepts (one creature, one environment piece, one pod piece) through two hosted tools, judged in URP under a single hard light. Compare the effort against hand-modelling.
  4. Test the one risky rig: put one arthropod through Meshy's Smart Rig (beta) and Tripo's rigging before assuming either way.

Hand-drawn snapshot; tools, prices and terms change, so check the vendor's page before paying. Sources are noted per row. Blender's manual page blocks automated fetching, so that one link is unchecked. Kept as a local file in the repo per the project rule.