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The game-ready 3D asset checklist: 25 things to check before a model goes into your engine

A practical pre-delivery checklist for game-ready 3D models: scale, pivot, transforms, topology, UVs, textures, naming, LODs, collision, rig and export settings for Unity, Unreal and Godot.

By Melisa — Creatune Published 2 min read
Mafia Hippo — wireframe view of a game-ready 3D character

Short answer: a model is game-ready when your team can import it and use it without touching it — correct scale and pivot, applied transforms, clean topology within budget, good UVs, textures in the format your engine expects, clear names, and LODs, collision and rig where needed. Here is the list we run before every delivery.

Scale, pivot and transforms

  1. 1 unit = 1 metre (or your project's agreed unit).
  2. Rotation and scale applied — no hidden 90° rotations or 0.01 scale.
  3. Forward and up axes match the engine's import settings.
  4. Pivot where the engine needs it: feet at origin for characters, bottom-centre for props, grid corner for modular tiles.
  5. Real-world proportions checked against a human reference.

Geometry

  1. Within the agreed triangle budget (mobile budgets).
  2. No n-gons in deforming areas; quads or clean triangles.
  3. No duplicate vertices, zero-area faces or flipped normals.
  4. Hidden faces removed where the asset sits on the ground or against a wall.
  5. Smoothing groups / hard edges set to match UV seams (for clean normal-map bakes).

UVs

  1. No overlapping UVs unless intentional (mirrored parts, tiling).
  2. Consistent texel density across the asset and its set.
  3. Padding between islands to avoid bleeding at lower mips.
  4. Second UV channel for lightmaps if your engine bakes lighting.

Textures

  1. Correct maps for the style — PBR set, hand-painted colour or flat (PBR guide).
  2. Packed for the engine: ORM for Unreal, Metallic-Smoothness for Unity, separate maps for Godot unless agreed.
  3. Normal maps in the right convention (OpenGL for Unity/Godot, DirectX for Unreal).
  4. Power-of-two sizes (512, 1024, 2048, 4096).
  5. Colour maps in sRGB, data maps (normal, roughness, metallic, AO) linear.

Naming and organisation

  1. Clear names: SM_Crate_A, SK_Hero, T_Crate_A_BaseColor, M_Crate.
  2. One material per logical surface — no stray default materials.

LOD, collision and rig

  1. LODs named _LOD0, _LOD1… if requested.
  2. Collision: simple convex meshes (UCX_ for Unreal) or primitives.
  3. Rig: clean hierarchy, root bone, only deforming bones exported (rigging guide).

Final test

  1. Imported into the real engine, viewed at game camera distance, on the target platform where possible.

Working with us

This checklist is part of every Creatune delivery — FBX + GLB, engine-packed textures, optional LODs, collision and rig, plus the .blend source on request. See the Game & 3D page or send your asset list on WhatsApp.

Frequently asked

1.What does game-ready mean for a 3D model?

The model can be dropped into a game engine and used immediately: correct scale and pivot, clean topology within budget, proper UVs, textures in the right format, sensible naming, and LODs, collision and rig where needed.

2.What is the most common problem when importing 3D models?

Wrong scale or rotation because transforms were not applied or axis settings did not match the engine — followed by missing or wrongly packed textures.

3.Should LODs and collision come with the model?

For anything used in a real game scene, yes, unless your team generates them automatically. Unreal expects UCX_ prefixed collision meshes; LODs are usually named _LOD0, _LOD1 and so on.

4.Does Creatune check assets in the engine before delivery?

Yes. We import into the target engine (Unity, Unreal or Godot), check scale, materials and animation, and share screenshots or a short video with the files.

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