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.
If you were using Asset Manager before the launch of Versioning, then you can see a button to migrate all your assets to V1. It’s highly recommended to do this, unless you have automated API based pipelines that may be affected.
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
Organization Owners by default have all permissions across all projects and assets.
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.
Each saved version increments the linear version number, so only Frozen versions will have a new sequence number.
- You can create a new Unfrozen version of an asset from any older version. For example, if an asset is currently version 10 then you can go back and edit version 2. This will create a new Unfrozen version of the asset. Once you save this UnFrozen version created from parent version 2, then the new Frozen asset version will be version 11. To check an asset version’s parent, expand the version table in the Created from section.
- You can also have multiple Unfrozen versions exist at the same time. As multiple team members can edit any version, then it’s possible for two or more team members to create new Unfrozen versions at the same time with the same or different parent versions. The important thing to remember here is that their linear version numbers are always assigned sequentially when each Unfrozen asset version is saved.
- You can't merge a new version back into the parent version, the two versions will always remain separate.
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.
All assets are filtered by the Latest label by default when you perform a search. But you can choose any label to filter. Only one label can be used to filter at a time.
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 |
- All new asset versions by default have a draft status
- Version status can be changed whether they are frozen or unfrozen.
An asset version cannot be saved if the version still has a transformation running, for example, a preview generation that automatically runs when you upload a 3D file.
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.