What are your "must have" Asset Store assets?

Please list the assets you think people must purchase when developing with Unity and also those you think might be useful or are planning to buy when you can. Please include links to the asset store if you can and explain why you think it is a must have.

My must haves:

ProGrids: Unity's snapping is somewhat lacking for me, this makes up for that and makes using model asset kits easy to line up.

ProBuilder: Great for white-boxing or even modeling a level right inside of Unity. The developers have been great, providing bugfixes and updates and responding to questions. Really good guys providing a great value.

UFPS - Ultimate First Person Shooter system. This is the best FPS system in the asset store and is reallly cheap. This is even just fun to drop an "Advanced Player" into your scene of new models you just purchased (after adding weapons and bullets in the latest version) so you can run around and shoot things up. They are currently working on adding network support.

Of course, all the free Unity stuff. There is a lot of free textures, models, textures, scripts, etc. in the free Unity projects like Boot Camp and Angry Bots. Even some great editor scripts like exporting selected objects or replacing prefabs.

Planning to buy:

Relief Terrain Pack (RTP) v3: This looks really cool.

Terrain Composer: This really looks like the best terrain builder.

Please add you own to this thread.

 

I similarly enjoy ProBuilder. ProGrids is a requirement if you want to get the most out of ProBuilder, but aside from that I'm not sure I'd have much interest in it... I'd also appreciate it more if it was more flexible than it is - grids aren't the only thing you might want to snap to.

I really like UniBill for in-app purchase support. Haven't used it for a while, but I remember it being a snap to implement.

I've only made a couple of very simple uses of it so far, but FinalIK seems pretty amazing.

The Universal Sound FX pack seems pretty amazing. I picked it up the moment I first saw it, and it's grown since. Fingers crossed I'll never have to waste time trawling the Internet looking for first-pass sound effects again.

AI for Mecanim seemed pretty neat the one time I used it, however it also seemed to be undergoing a huge rewrite at the time.

 

Reliable Assets that I use often:
Core Framework
Easy Touch
HotTween
Easy Font
Simple Waypoint System

Assets that I don't really use in projects, but LOVE to play with:
ProBuilder
Space for Unity
Particle Playground
MegaShapes

 

Shaderforge
Skyshop

 

Advanced Foliage Shader

 

Shaderforge as i always had problems with scripting this asset was very important to me in my project.

UFPS very cheap very advance first person controller excelent for the begginers and good start for the advance.

Crafty for Unity THE best patching system i found and tested on the asset store and outside market, must have if you want to have a patch able project.

and of course NGUI at this point i think everybody knows NGUI.

 

Always: DFGUI, HoTween

Currently: Grids, DunGen, ProBuilder

 

If you're using Unity Free (like I am), I highly recommend Benchy Profiler.

 

The only thing I really use frequently enough to list would have to be NGUI; which i'm sure is essential for everyone

 

Shader Forge gives you Unreal Engine style shader creation
Playmaker is a great FSM tool
Daikon Forge GUI is a far better UI tool than NGUI, I'd say

 

Just bought this as soon as I saw your comment and checked it out.

Terrain Composer and RTP for me, although I'm still learning both they are fun to play with. On the Terrain Composer side I really don't use much of the generation features, just mainly importing my own RAW heightmaps because I can import a very large heightmap which TC will split and stitch into multiple terrains for me.

 

1. Animation Baker https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/18217
2. Advanced Foliage Shader
   
3. Mobile Movie Texture
4. gallery screenshot
5. Physics to animation
6. PUN+
7. Cruncher(pro only) or Krable (unity free) polygon reducers
8. Simple Waypoint System: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/2506
9. Hand painted textures natural surface https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/8297
10. Track buildr

 

1. LeanTween. Highly recommend. Just moved our project over to it from HOTween = no more allocations or spikes
2. Slinq. I normally stay away from LINQ in Unity like it's the plague because of the allocations, but Slinq is allocation free
3. NGUI. I have to mention that if you've tried NGUI pre v3.0 and moved away from it, to try it again. v3.0+ is a much nicer and intuitive beast.

 

NGUI & DFGUI are both excellent.

I echo others here on Shader Forge. For me it is a must have if you do anything with shaders.

In terms of mesh deformation and animation, I like Mega-Fiers. I actually like most Chris West's products.

Now a fairly new one that I feel is a must have, is Text Mesh Pro. Although it is advertised as a replacement for Text Mesh, it offers so much more in terms of features and the rendering quality of the text is simply amazing. If you use text in your games or projects, you ought to take a look at Text Mesh Pro.

 

Editor Console Pro: so you can see (and make your code editor jump to) the call stack of your logs
Full Inspector: your Inspector on steroids
xARM: get screenshots of your game in different resolutions quickly, useful for mobile apps
Master Audio: handles music crossfading and sound effect variation for me

 

NGUI
Hotween

suitable for any kind of project

 

UFPS This is one of the best plugins for doing a FPS

FinalIK This plugin is awesome to create hit reactions and make the enemies hold the weapons with both hands.

PoolManager This is an easy yet powerful object pooling manager

TextMesh Pro Awesome text rendering and it integrates just fine with NGUI!

I2 Localization This is my own plugin! But I really end up using it a lot to make my games in several languages.

 

My "bread and butter" assets that are helpful in pretty much any game:

NGUI
Pool Manager (object pooling)
Master Audio (music and sound fx with many features)
cInput (add sanity to getting input, an interesting alternative is InControl)

For mobile games, I'd add xARM (see how your game will look on a bunch of different aspect ratios and resolutions).

 

master audio https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/5607
mood machine https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/15699
camera perspective editor (this is new but already proving to be invaluable) https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/16349
Decal system pro https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/10608
cinema camera pro https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/15641
mesh baker 2 https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/5017
cruncher https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/4294
NoesisGUI https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/9282

One could easily double this list with those small utilities such as component copier that speed things up so much as well.

 

Advanced PlayerPrefs Window, also Todo List (from code), both have been very useful to me for debugging.

 

I am surprised nobody mentioned these essential items!


SceneMate $10


Script Inspector 2 $25



Favorites Tab $10


Lightmapping Extended FREE


Master Audio: AAA Sound Solution $30

 

Sound Manager Pro (https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/9209) - It's so hard to go back to default Unity audio after using this asset, and it's fairly cheap as well. I've also heard good things about Master Audio, but never had the chance to use it.

Benchy Profiler (https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/3872) - If you're using Unity Free, you need this, simple as that.

Props Animations (https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/10214) - Every animation you'll ever need for prototyping.

 

Thanks for the votes guys (Master Audio).

My list would be:

Advanced Player Prefs, Master Audio (most flexible audio plug on the store), Core GameKit (makes combat and pooling dead simple with zero code), Hotween (awesome and fast), Build Report Tool (gotta find what's taking up room), NGUI (it works. haven't tried DF-GUI yet but plan on it), and PlayMaker (only use it for cutscene stuff, it definitely speed up doing that kind of stuff). And my team tells me that Behavior Designer is their new fave for enemy AI . We use all these in every single game.

 

jerotas is too bashful Master Audio and Core GameKit, which he is involved with, are some of the best and most supported assets in the Unity asset store and well worth getting.

 

2D Toolkit (still the most fantastically made and supported asset of all the ones I tried, imho)
Easy Save 2 (great to speed-up the implementation of a save system)
Anti-Cheat Toolkit (very good protection VS speed hacks and the rest)
Advanced FPS Counter (not necessary, but really nice to have and with tons of features)
Combu (this saved my life after an online leaderboard platform I was using broke down: great for leaderboards and community management)
Master Audio I got to use it only recently, and it's a quite fundamental plugin for audio: I'll never go without ever again
HOTween (for, uh, tweening btw I'll release HOTween v2, which will be called DOTween, in a very short while - sorry for the self-shout)

Shader Forge and Advanced Builder also look very awesome and are in my "next" list, but I still didn't use them

P.S. thanks for the votes from me too

 

my best purchases and the reason, why Unity became my favorite toy

Playmaker
NGUI and additional PlayMaker NGUI Scripts
Shader Forge
Adventure Creator
Curvy

and next I will buy UFPS, looks great
particle Playground is on my wishlist too

 

My "must have" assets are:

NGUI
TextMesh Pro
Shader Forge

 

How do you find editor performance with the in-Unity script viewer? I used one (not the one you linked) and removed it 30 minutes later because it made my editor hitch like crazy even on a reasonably powerful machine. I like the concept, but I'm hesitant to spend money on another one in case it's a limitation of the GUI system or something.

 

No lag for me at all. Editing, saving are all instantaneous for me. And I am on the old MacBook Pro 2010.
Just ask Flipbookee for a trial version and try it out yourself.

 

NGUI.

 

Vectrosity - a must for line drawing and Eric5h5 is one of the pillars of this community.
NGUI - must still try DFGUI but have found NGUI to be both a great product and an inspirational piece of code.

 

For me the text editor bit itself ran fine, but my Unity Editor as a whole had crazy hitches every 10 seconds or so. It made editing my scenes painful, though.

 

Thank you for including Text Mesh Pro in your list of "must have" assets. It is certainly nice to know your work is appreciated.

Personally, I like NGUI, DFGUI, Shader Forge, I2 Localization, Score Flash & MegaBook as well as Chris West's other products.

 

None are "Must Haves" but I am really enjoying

1) Dialogue System (This wasn't as easy to learn or as well documented, but the developer was incredibly helpful which is even better than good tutorials).

And in the past I used, but am no longer using:

2) Vectrosity as an alternative way to render pixel art (bypassing SpriteRenderer) & before that SpriteTile for its scripting API for procedural tile maps (These were a lot easier and less frustrating to learn).

3) That $2 tooltip thing that saved me way more time than the petty cost of it, lol.


I actually will probably never use another asset store asset because of how difficult it is to learn their API. By difficult, I mean time consuming. Enough to where I could have just did it myself (and had the advantages of self-created assets, where everything makes much more sense to you). I also find some assets to be less useful than before because of changes in the engine architecture. (Ex. I no longer use tile maps at all, and Unity 4.6 fixed the bugs in SpriteRenderer). Still good assets though.

This could always change though. Some assets are worth purchasing because they save you time and effort. (For example, I'd never try to invent my own complex asset which enhances shaders or whatever, bc I dont want to learn shader language).

I have learned that asset store assets are actually worth it for the developer's assistance or documentation more than the actual asset. If it's not well supported by an active developer or well documented, then I won't buy.

 

For my production pipelines, my favourite assets have been:

Skyshop: I can create very realistic levels with the cubemaps in my game. Just very good stuff. It is probably the most sought after tool in my kit. I would love to see ways to create HDRs and edit them.

Alloy/Lux: These are 2 very powerful PBR solutions and it makes creating surfaces very easy, leveraged by the power of Substance Designer (another great tool I would recommend). Right now I am giving Alloy the slight edge in terms of quality and ease of controlling details.

Playmaker is another great tool that I enjoy using. My game has a model viewer and Playmaker has been very helpful in the creation of it.

Lightmapping Extended: Until Enlighten/Spectra GI release, this is definitely something Unity should have had long ago.

On my wishlist though, is Shroud. But because of the $600 price tag, I want to see how fast the cloth will be in Unity 5 before I consider it.

Another tool on my wishlist is Daikon Forge and Candela.

EDIT: Also another tool in my wishlist is Skele for making cutscenes.

 

I really enjoy Behave 2 for making AIs.

 

Splaterrain for sure. Allows colour and splatmaps on non terrain objects so I can export directly from world machine.

Export OBJ, colour and splat from WM, import to Unity. All set.

 

I'll have to chime in and say that just based on reading Dialogue System's sequencer and plug/support for uSequencer, I will most likely be purchasing uSequencer too.

You know, seeing as how it is EXACTLY what I was thinking of programming myself, but didn't want to because I am lazy. I literally was like, "I need a cut scene scrubber that controls my scenes. But...that is a lot of work. I'll pass." Then I find out about uSequencer? OMG!

I am actually frustrated and annoyed, because I had already spent some time in the asset store and typed "Sequencer" for exactly such an asset. Yet what showed up? Not uSequencer.

I just tried it on my PC, and it brought it up. However, the Unity site seems to have a lot of issues with Android devices. Or at least Android/Firefox. So I'm not surprised it brought up nothing the first 2 times i searched on my tablets.

 

as a music asset developer, i'm curious about which are your "must have" music assets...

 

Okay:
Score flash - if you need to print out some text -- why waste time!
DFGUI - Dont waste your time doing GUI, its what you see is what you get.
ITween - Why waste time writing your own tweening engine.
Finger Gestures - Why waste writing your own input
Cartoon fx pack - You need some particles on the double
Soldier animation pack - this guy has alot of animations and weapons. Great for prototyping lots of games

Want to make your space scene look less like ass try these two assets.
Future City - $25. Steal of a deal.
Skybox purple nebula - $5 cant really go wrong for $5

 

There aren't any. I'd want different music for each game, and I'd probably avoid any popular items on the Asset Store because I can be fairly confident that they'll be in lots of other games too.

The exception to that would be super generic stuff where it doesn't matter if it's recognisable. Horror music violin screeching springs to mind.

 

I think you might have got burned by a couple bad assets, and that's too bad.

Some products you just couldn't write in a reasonable time frame at all. Master Audio, 2D Toolkit, Behavior Designer (and others you mentioned), the list goes on and on (and on and on). All those and many more have amazing support, documentation and super extensive functionality. Don't go with a crappy half-assed implementation of core features when you could get a "Ferrari" of that feature for the price of a movie date. That just makes no sense and limits you at the same time.

I've bought probably 60 Assets, and only 2 have been abandoned or we don't use for various reasons. Do your research before buying, there are hundreds of reviews on these better-done assets.

 

Did you try it? If not, just ask Flipbookee. He is more than willing to send you a copy. Try it for yourself, you are the best judge for your need. I am just saying from my personal experience, it runs superb.

 

Without a doubt that honor goes to...

UScript http://u3d.as/content/detox-studios-llc/u-script-visual-scripting-tool/2fc

 

I've been meaning to pick that up. Could you compare it to Playmaker and/or Universe? We think Playmaker is too slow performance wise and too limited for a lot of things. We love Behavior Designer which is very fast, but even that is probably somewhat more limited than what uScript can do...

 

I came from UDK, so I was looking for something that was similar to Kismet. I tried Playmaker, but it didn't feel "as simple". For example, with Playmaker, I had to do a lot of extra command inputs, the UI is hideous, the learning curve (for me) was two weeks of headache. With uScript I got the hang of it in 9 days (I've been using it since late Janruary/ early February of this year). I was able to literally able to figure some commands out on my own, because the nodes are labeled very well.

I have two tutorials (and another 4 in the works) on using uScript.
http://uscript.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3015
and
http://uscript.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3020

Go download the Free version of uScript to test it out for yourself (you can even follow along with my tutorials to compare the simplicity or complexity of uScript).

 

PoolManager: One of the few assets that I always add when starting a project. It handles many edge cases, is well documented, and does wonders to alleviate garbage collection performance bottlenecks. Good investment for any project of any size.

 

Thanks, I may do that.

 

awesome combined list from everyone. i want to try them ALL dagnammit!

 

Not yet. If/when I next have a desire for in-Editor text stuff I'll definitely go there first though.