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Assets

Assets are the building blocks of your PlayCanvas application. They represent all the external resources your application needs, such as 3D models, textures, audio files, and scripts.

Assets vs Resources​

In PlayCanvas, there's an important distinction between Assets and Resources:

  • Asset - A record in the asset registry that contains metadata about a resource, including its name, type, tags, and a reference to the underlying resource data. Assets are managed by the AssetRegistry.

  • Resource - The actual runtime data that gets loaded into memory and used by the engine. For example, a texture asset's resource is the actual image data that can be applied to materials.

When you load an asset, PlayCanvas downloads and parses the underlying file to create the resource. The asset object then holds a reference to this resource via its resource property.

const asset = this.app.assets.find('my-texture');
asset.ready((asset) => {
    const texture = asset.resource; // The actual Texture object
});
this.app.assets.load(asset);

Asset Lifecycle​

Assets go through several stages during the lifetime of your application:

  1. Registry - Assets are registered in the AssetRegistry, making them discoverable by ID, name, or tags
  2. Loading - Asset data is downloaded from the server
  3. Ready - The resource is parsed and available for use
  4. Unloading - Resources can be unloaded to free memory

For details on controlling when assets load, see Preloading and Loading and Unloading.

Supported Formats​

PlayCanvas supports a wide variety of file formats for different asset types. See Supported Formats for a complete list.

Working with Assets​

In the Editor​

If you're using the PlayCanvas Editor, see the Editor Assets Guide for information on:

  • Importing and organizing assets
  • Configuring asset properties
  • Using the Asset Store

Programmatically​

For working with assets in code:

Finding Assets​

Looking for 3D models, textures, or audio for your project? See Finding Assets for a list of asset marketplaces and resources.