3D Objects

Effect House provides built-in 3D objects for you to use in your effect, including Plane, Cube, Sphere, and Head. In this guide, you will learn how to move, rotate, and scale any object, as well as change the material and use your own model in a project.

Add a 3D Object

Go to the Hierarchy panel and click the Add button [+] > 3D and select the object you want. Each 3D object has two default components: Mesh Render and Transform.

Mesh Render defines the mesh and the material of your object, and Transform defines the object’s scale, rotation, and position in the 3D scene.

Object Hierarchy

Starting in Effect House v2.0.0, the 3D objects you select are automatically added to the General render group in the Hierarchy panel. Learn more about render groups.

Change an Object Name

In the Hierarchy panel, right-click your object and choose Rename. The new object name can also be found at the top of the Inspector panel.

Move, Rotate, and Scale an Object

Transform

Transform defines the position, rotation, and scale of your object in the scene. You can change the Position, Rotation, and Scale of any 3D object in the Inspector panel.

Gizmo

You can move, rotate, and scale the object using the gizmo tool in the Scene panel.

Move: Move the object in the following ways:

• Click and drag the arrows to allow movement in the selected directional line.
• Click and drag the yellow square in the center of the object to allow movement on all axes.
• Click and drag the red, blue, or green squares to allow movement along the plane.

Rotate: Rotate the object in the following ways:

• Click and drag the object to allow rotation in the selected orbit.

Scale: Scale the object in the following ways:

• Click and drag the squares outside of the object and along the axis lines to allow scaling in the selected direction.
• Click and drag the square in the center of the object to allow uniform scaling in all axes and directions.

Bind an Object

You can move an object under another object.

For example, there is a Plane and Cube in the Hierarchy panel. You move the Cube under the Plane. Now, the Plane object is the parent of the Cube object. This means the child Cube will follow the transformation of the parent Plane. If you move, rotate, or scale the parent Plane, the Transform of the child Cube will change accordingly.

Change the Material of an Object

Click the 3D object and then go to the Inspector panel. You’ll see the Mesh Renderer component.

Click the Material slot and change the material to one you created or a built-in one.

Tip

Learn more about Materials.

Configure Render Layer and Render Order

Layer

If you want this object only visible to a particular camera, set the Layer to a layer that can be rendered by a specific camera.

Tip

The Layer setting corresponds to the layer setting of the camera. If the layer number doesn’t match the layer of the camera, the camera will not render it out. Learn more about your camera and setting up layers.

Auto Sorting

When adding objects to the scene, some objects render in front and some objects render behind by default.

For example, you can see that in this scene, the sphere renders in front of the user’s body.

This happens because each of these objects is set to use Auto Sorting.

When Auto Sorting is selected in the object’s parameters, the default ordering is determined by the order of the objects in the Hierarchy panel. Objects are shown from top to bottom, with the lower objects displayed in the front. Therefore, if you change the order of the entities, the layering of the objects will be affected.

Sorting Order

You can also override Auto Sorting and force an object to always appear on top or behind another, regardless of ordering in the Hierarchy panel. By disabling Auto Sorting, you enable Sorting Order. When you change this value, you can force ordering. The higher the value, the closer to the front the object will render.

Import Your Own 3D Models

To import your own 3D assets to a project, go to the Asset panel and then click the Add button [+] > Import > From Computer. Learn more about best practices for importing.

You can directly drag the object to the scene and it will be auto-assigned a standard PBR material that is generated from the FBX model. From there, you can start to customize your own material.

You can also change the Mesh slot in the Mesh Renderer component to modify the mesh you want to display at any time.

Import Models from Asset Library

Effect House makes it easy to import Sketchfab assets! Use the Asset Library to import Sketchfab assets into Effect House. Learn more about the 3D Asset Library.