The Left Sidebar
The left sidebar is like a dashboard for the entire model and contains references to all the objects, materials, and textures in your model. Any warnings or compatibility issues that we look for will show up in the left sidebar. Often those issues can be resolved by running one or more processes in the operations section.
Operations
At the top of the sidebar is a dropdown section with all sorts of helpful functions for optimizing your model. Many of the buttons only show up if you need them. We'll break down each operation below.
Center Model
Use the center model button to place your model at the center of the xz plane. Keep in mind that the centering algorithm uses the bounding box of the model to determine the center point.
Optimize Textures
The optimize textures buttons brings up a modal with options for minimizing and deduplicating textures. If your model has several large textures you may benefit from setting a lower max resolution.
Note: the optimize textures process will also change the format of any non transparent png textures to jpeg.
Apply Transforms
If a mesh or object 3D has nonzero position, rotation, or scale values the apply transforms operation will apply those changes directly to the geometry of the object and will reset the object's transforms to zero. The model should look the same, the difference is the transforms have been baked into the geometries so that the current position of any object is now the initial position of the object. This is sometimes necessary to produce Quicklook compatible models.
Merge ORM Maps
ORM here stands for occlusion, roughness, and metalness. Since the ambient occlusion, roughness, and metalness maps of a material use different color channels they can be merged into a single image. Clicking the merge ORM maps button will run the merge operation on any materials with different occlusion, roughness, and metalness maps.
Deduplicate Textures
You can deduplicate textures as a single operation by clicking the deduplicate textures button.
Deduplicate Materials
If any materials are exactly the same you will find a deduplicate materials button in the operations dropdown. Click the deduplicate materials button to replace any duplicates with the original material. Reducing the number of materials should help reduce the filesize of the model.
Flatten Scene
Often models have unnecessary layers of objects. Click the flatten scene button to simplify the scene tree as much as possible and remove unnecessary nodes.
Note: As the inspector will warn you, flattening the scene will most likely break any animations on your model as animation keyframes are associated with specific objects.
Merge Animations
If the model has multiple animations a merge animations button will appear in the operations section. Merging animations will combine every keyframe track into a single animation. Use this button if you want to support viewers like Quicklook which only allow one animation.
Import Model
If you are editing a draft in portal you'll see the import model button near the bottom of the list of operations. The import model button allows you to select a model from your published models to add to the scene. Use cases include adding multiple of the same object, pairing two related products, setting up a scene to showcase your model, and adding a product to a 3d environment for virtual photography.
Scene Tree
The scene tree shows you the structure of your model starting with the root node. Click on the plus next to an object to see its descendants or click on the name of an object to select it. If a mesh or object3D is selected the name of object will be yellow.
Materials
The materials section is simply a list of all the materials in your model and any unused materials left over from editing. Click on the name of a material to select it. If a material is selected the name of the material will be yellow.
Textures
In the textures section you'll find icons for any textures available for editing. Click on an icon to select the corresponding texture. If a texture is selected the texture's icon border will be yellow.
Animations
If the model has animations an animations section will appear near the bottom of the left sidebar. Open it to see all the names of all the animations in your model. Below the name of each animation is a play/pause button and a scrubber so you can move back and forward through the animation.
Warnings
If we find any potential issues with your model a warnings section will appear with a separate warning for each mesh/material/texture. Each warning contains the name of the offending object and a description of the problem. Occasionally an autofix button will be available to you. If the warning is a concern for you the autofix button is the easiest way to resolve the issue.