Optimizing Assets for Augmented Reality (AR)

When designing a scene in Aero, it is crucial to consider how your audience will have a great viewing experience. When a project is shared, it will travel to various devices across multiple networks. Due to this fact, it is vital to keep the file size optimized for quick delivery while balancing the experience with superb visual quality and user experience. Although Aero does not impose a scene size limit, it is recommended to stay below 50MB for smooth delivery and faster loading times. Here are a couple of tips to optimize your Aero experiences: 

• Make sure to remove any unused assets in your scene before sharing them out. Any unused assets will increase the scene size and load time even if they are not visible on the screen. Unused audio assets are often a hidden culprit for increased project size. 
  

• Large images can increase the file size and create slow load times for your users. Optimizing images is the process of decreasing their file size and balancing that with good visual fidelity. (how to optimize your images)
• Also, consider using Scalable Vector Graphic(SVG) files where appropriate. An SVG file is a standard graphics file type used for rendering two-dimensional images on the internet. (how to export SVG files with Adobe Illustrator)

• Compressed audio files eliminate some digital information that is not entirely necessary to deliver sound. They have the vast majority of the original data, but not all of it. These files are useful for downloading and streaming because they are relatively small.
• Most music files are in some kind of compressed format.  
• MP3 is the best-compressed audio format to use in Adobe Aero as it balances good audio quality with a smaller file size. (how to convert an audio file to MP3 in Adobe Media Encoder).
  
  

• Polygon counts - 3D models are made from points in space that are connected to form polygons. Models should use the least number of polygons to get the desired visual results for the best results. When deciding the polycount, balancing quality in relation to functionality is always important.

• To optimize a 3D model, always try to reduce the polygon count. For Augmented Reality, mesh polygon counts should be 5k preferred, 10k acceptable, and 15k maximum.

• Large texture sizes can quickly bloat a 3D asset. For best results, keep your texture sizes between 256x256 and 1024x1024

• If you are using multiple copies of the same 3d model, use Aero’s duplicate feature instead of importing multiple instances,

• If you are designing on the desktop, we encourage you to test the project on a mobile device via a shared link or QR code (how to share your projects)

• Aero supports many 3D file formats (see what is supported here). We recommend using the GLTF (GL Transmission Format) file type when possible.