Welcome to the first installment of DVNC’s monthly Top 5 Unity Asset Store Assets. Each of these assets have been used by members of the DVNC team in projects or for rapid prototyping. Every one of these assets are usable in a variety of project types, and are easy to setup or require hardly any setup.

DVNC is in no way affiliated with any of the assets or developers of the assets listed below. Each of these assets have been used by DVNC members to create projects faster or of higher quality inside of Unity.

5. Quest Machine – $65

We haven’t tested the full version of this asset yet, however, we’re willing to include it on the list because just the evaluation version included all of the features (and more) that we needed. Any game that intends to have quests (especially if you want procedural quests) should use quest machine (or build a system similar). With a price tag of $65 it is a bit expensive, however, the evaluation version is linked below if you just want to test out a quest system inside of Unity.

Quest Machine Evaluation Version

Tip: The documentation for this asset is on the longer side as the asset can do a lot (from sequenced quests to procedural). When starting out and looking through the documentation ignore the procedural section and try to understand the base asset first. Once you get a simple “Pickup X of Y” quest setup try learning the message system and creating more advanced quests (like “Kill X of Y”).

4. Huge FBX Mocap Library (Parts 1-3) – Free

This asset contains over 2,000 motion captured animations. The pack includes basic animations such as walking, running, punching, and kicking. Developers can also find more unique animations such as basketball dribbling, breakdancing, or sitting at a bar.

Tip: Make sure to download one of the three packs and check the included Excel spreadsheet to see a giant list of all animations included in all three packs.

3. Simple Town – Cartoon Assets – $5

An excellent asset pack for grabbing a bunch of town-focused assets (think houses, office buildings, and cars). The included models all look great for prototypes or demos and could even be implemented into a full game depending on intended style. The variety of buildings and cars help to create believable, fleshed out environments. All of the assets are optimized for mobile (which means they should also be good in VR).

Tip: After importing the asset spend at least 10-15 minutes exploring the included demo scene to see how the creators’ place the assets (but don’t be afraid to be unique in your project).

2. Behavior Designer – $80

Behavior Designer is a must-have asset for any game that requires more advanced AI (think similar to Dark Souls or Monster Hunter). Behavior Designer lets developers easily and visually create behavior trees inside of Unity. This allows for developers to make more reaction-based AI that can occasionally perform tasks unexpectedly. If you’d like to learn more about behavior trees the article linked below is a good starting place:

Behavior Trees for AI: How They Work

Tip: Make sure to read up on behavior trees and the various types of nodes that’ll be encountered while creating trees. The DVNC team hasn’t nailed down behavior trees yet, but we can say that sequences and repeaters will help Unity-minded developers achieve intended behavior faster.

1. RENDERBOX – Post Processing – Free

“Oh Renderbox how we love you so…”

This quote from our Lead Unity Developer, Vince, pretty much summarizes the team’s view of Renderbox. Finding a good toon-centric skybox can be difficult, however, Renderbox makes the process almost too easy. The asset also includes several different post-processing profiles to bootstrap style design. If you need a sky for your game and you don’t want to spend a few hours searching through the asset store or online for the right skybox, Renderbox is the solution.

Tip: After importing Renderbox adding a sky to your project is as easy as opening the demo scene copying the Renderbox related game objects and then pasting them into your scene.

Bonus Tip: Before deciding on a sky color it’s important to have selected your post processing profile for the camera (and there’s around 20ish or more included in Renderbox so feel free to go crazy). The post-processing profile on a camera can greatly change the color of a material.

Bonus: Post Processing Stack – Free

If you’re new to Unity and you’ve always wondered how other developers get their games looking “good” then the answer is the Post Processing Stack. This asset was made by Unity to give the engine the ability to render post-processing effects on cameras. The post-processing stack can be used for: bloom, fog, depth of field, ambient occlusion, and much more.

Tip: Below is a tutorial on how to use the post processing stack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0OQvWAPeuo

Bonus Tip: Post processing effects vary by game but the DVNC team has noticed the following effects could be considered “needed” (or at least desired) to achieve a baseline of “decent” visuals:

• Fog
• Bloom
• Ambient Occlusion
• Antialiasing
• Color Grading
• Vignette (try to keep it very subtle, unless a strong vignette is needed)