Assets in Asset Manager encapsulate multiple elements like concept art, source files, metadata, game ready objects, variants, and other elements. Asset Versioning enables you to save and track changes to an asset or an element in the asset, in one place with a linear versioning system. Different teams can use and change the same asset in different projects without disrupting each other's work. The version labeling system lets teams label specific versions for their pipeline. This helps deliver the right version of an asset into their projects and pipelines, while at the same time the asset might be in use in many other builds and pipelines.
Roles and permissions
All Asset Manager users can use asset versioning, however, accessibility and permissions depend on your Asset Manager role.
Organization Roles
Asset Manager Admin
- Create, edit, and save new assets and versions on assets across all Projects
- View all Unfrozen and Frozen asset versions
- View the version table
- View all labels, assign and unassign them as well as filter by them
Project Roles
Contributors
- Create, edit and save new assets and versions
- View all Unfrozen and Frozen asset versions
- View the version table
- View all labels, assign and unassign them as well as filter by them
Consumers
- View all Frozen asset versions that have a label
- Can’t view the version table for Frozen versions
- View all labels and filter by them
- Only results with Frozen versions will be returned
- Can’t view versions with a pending label as these are Unfrozen
Viewers
- View only latest Frozen versions
- Can’t view the version table for Frozen versions
- Can’t view labels and filter by them (except latest label)
- Can’t view pending assets (regardless of published status)
- Pending assets will not be shown in the search results
Asset versioning features
Asset versioning categories
In asset versioning, changes made to assets or its elements create new asset versions. These versions are created in a linear order such as V1, V2, V3 and so on.
There are two asset version categories:
- Unfrozen: When an asset is first created, it is Unfrozen which means it can be edited. You can add any files and metadata until you are satisfied with the results. When you save the asset version, it becomes Frozen.
- Frozen: Once an asset version is Frozen, it can no longer be changed. Any edits to the Asset or its elements with a Frozen version will automatically create a new version. This new version will be Unfrozen.
Changelogs
Users can leave an optional note in the changelog describing the changes they’ve made in an Unfrozen version.
Labels
You can track where the asset versions are being used with the help of labels. As assets can exist across multiple projects in Asset Manager, it is easy to use different versions of the asset in those projects. You can create customized labels, for example, V10 = Playstation or V20 = Mobile. Labels make it easier to ensure that your projects and pipelines are always using the right asset version.
System labels There are three system labels:
- Latest: latest version of a Frozen asset. It is the default version.
- Stable: set by the user and is the latest and stable version of the asset.
- Pending: applied to all UnFrozen assets when they are first created.
Label guidelines
- Labels are exclusive to a version, so they can only exist on one version of an asset at a time.
- You can choose existing labels for a version or you can create a label.
- When a label is created, it is available across your Organization.
- If you choose a label that is associated with an asset version, then it will be removed from that version and will be assigned to the new selected verison.
- You can have multiple labels on a version.
- On the All Assets page, you are limited to your lowest role across all projects. For example, if you're a contributor on Project A and a viewer on Project B, you'll only have viewer access on the All Assets page for both projects. Your search will default to only Latest labeled asset versions. All Pending assets would be invisible as Viewers cannot see Pending assets.
Status
You can use an asset version’s status to track the version's review process. The following are the statuses available and the subsequent statuses that they can transition to:
Status | Can transition to | |
---|---|---|
1. | Draft | In review |
2. | In review | Approved, Rejected |
3. | Approved | Published |
4. | Rejected | In review |
5. | Published | Withdrawn |
6. | Withdrawn | Published |
Unity VCS integration
When you create an asset from Unity VCS files, the following takes place in asset versioning:
- After every Unity VCS commit, a new asset version is created.
- The changelog of the Unity VCS commit is in sync with the changelog of the new version submitted on Asset Manager.
- You can only freeze an asset version when the sync with the Unity VCS repository is completed.
- If you remove a file within Asset Manager, it doesn’t remove the file in the UVCS repository.