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Assign assets to an AssetBundle

Assign assets to AssetBundles in the Editor or through scripts.
Read time 2 minutesLast updated a month ago
To build assets into an AssetBundle, you must first assign assets to an AssetBundle, either in the Unity Editor or through a script. You can then create and use a script to build the AssetBundles. For information on the best approaches for organizing assets into AssetBundles, refer to Organizing assets into AssetBundles.
Note
This workflow describes the creation of AssetBundles with the built-in 
BuildPipeline.BuildAssetBundles
 API. An alternative is to use the Addressables package, which is built on top of AssetBundles and provides a UI to organize the assets in your project.

Assign assets to AssetBundles in the Editor

To assign a given asset to an AssetBundle in the Unity Editor, perform the following steps:
  1. Select the asset in the Project window and view it in the Inspector.
  2. Use the AssetBundle left-hand dropdown menu at the bottom of the Inspector window to assign or create an AssetBundle:
    • To create a new AssetBundle, select the left-hand dropdown and select New, or choose an existing AssetBundle from the list. Tip: To organize AssetBundles with subfolders, use the 
      /
      character. For example, use the AssetBundle name 
      environment/forest
      to create an AssetBundle named 
      forest
      under an 
      environment
      subfolder.
  3. Optionally use the right-hand menu to assign or create an AssetBundle variant:
    • To create a new variant, select the right-hand dropdown and select New, or choose an existing variant from the list.

Assigning multiple assets to an AssetBundle

You can assign an AssetBundle to a folder in your project. By default, all assets in that folder are assigned to the same AssetBundle as the folder. However, the AssetBundle assignments for individual assets takes precedence. To assign an AssetBundle to a folder:
  1. Select the folder in its containing parent folder the Project window.
  2. Use the AssetBundle dropdown to assign a new or existing AssetBundle to the folder.
You can also select multiple assets and assign them to an AssetBundle. However, assigning assets to an AssetBundle in this way overrides any existing AssetBundle assignments for those assets.

Assign assets to AssetBundles with a script

To assign assets to AssetBundles in your code, use the 
BuildPipeline.BuildAssetBundles
 method with an array of 
AssetBundleBuild
 structures. This approach overrides any AssetBundle assignments made in the Inspector.
If you want your script to respect AssetBundle assignments made in the Inspector, use 
AssetDatabase.GetAllAssetBundleNames
 and 
AssetDatabase.GetAssetPathsFromAssetBundle
 to retrieve the necessary information and populate the 
AssetBundleBuild
array.

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