AI 3D character generator for game assets
Take a concept image to a rigged, animated GLB with Bake3D, then import it into Unity, Godot or Blender with the checks each engine needs.
By the Bake3D teamUpdated 6 min read
Short answer
To make a game character with an AI 3D generator, start from a clear concept image, generate and rig the model, and add the motions your game needs, like idle, walk and run loops. Export an animated GLB or FBX, in place or with root motion. Import it into your engine and check the scale, facing, clips and foot contact before you use it.
How we checked this: Exported rigged and animated GLBs have been imported into Blender 4.4 and Godot 4.7.2 with sampled animation comparisons; the Unity editor tool compiles against Unity 6 and native Unity playback validation is still in progress. Generated asset quality varies with the input image.
A game character needs more than a pretty mesh. It needs a skeleton the engine can drive, skin weights that hold up when the legs move, an animation or two to start from, and a file format the engine imports without a conversion step. Bake3D produces all four from one image as a glTF binary (GLB). This guide follows that path and stops at each point where a game project should check the result.
Start with a concept image the generator can read
Use one subject on a plain background, seen from the front or a three-quarter view, with the whole body visible. The background is removed automatically, but limbs that hide behind the body have to be guessed, so a clean silhouette matters more than resolution; about 1,000 pixels on the long edge is plenty. Creatures, robots, vehicles and props all work; the rig adapts to the body plan instead of forcing a humanoid skeleton onto a four-legged or wheeled subject.
Concept art with strong outlines and flat lighting tends to reconstruct more predictably than a painterly render with heavy shadows, because shading is interpreted as surface. A pose with a little space between the limbs gives the rig distinct parts to work with.
Generate, rig and inspect
Upload the image or describe the subject in the studio. Generation produces a textured mesh with PBR maps; rigging adds a skeleton, skin weights and role labels for every joint. Credits are charged when the job is accepted, and a stage that fails gives its credits back automatically: a mesh whose rig could not be made stays in your project, charged as a mesh, and the rig’s credits come back. Current costs are on the pricing page: mesh generation and rigging together are the largest part of a character. To see the result before you pay, the 3D character maker page has four Bake3D characters you can direct for free.
Before animating, look at the mesh from all sides. The studio’s Source geometry panel compares the input image with seven rendered views so you can spot a cut limb or fused parts early. Then read the rig report: joint placement, the rig check card and the measured deformation percentage. The quadruped rigging guide explains these reports and the usual fixes; the general rig checklist covers any body plan.
Fix rig problems now, not after animation. A skeleton with a knee in the wrong place produces wrong motion in every clip you make from it.
Add motion your game can use
Bake3D composes motion from a description (“turn the head slowly and wag the tail”) or from presets. For locomotion on a standing rig with two or more separate leg chains, Walk · fit to this rig measures a stride from limb reach and staggers footfalls; in the API and MCP it is the preset adaptive-walk. Hanging, seated, swimming or flying rest poses need a different action, and wheels and rigid panels need their own motions around their real pivots.
Decide early whether your game controller or the clip moves the character. The studio’s animated export bakes clips with travel included. The API and MCP export accept rootMotion: false for an in-place clip and an fps of 24, 30 or 60. Applying both controller movement and baked travel moves the character twice, so pick one and match the controller speed to the clip.
Motion is baked to keyframes on export, so any engine that reads glTF animation can play it. A described motion is a starting point: review loop boundaries, the fastest frames and foot contact before treating it as final.
Export the right GLB
Two exports matter for games. Rigged GLB is the rest pose with skeleton, skin weights and textures; use it when your project supplies all animation. Animated GLB adds the saved clips you select, baked to keyframes. The export tab also offers engine presets that only change the file suffix and remind you of the import notes for Unity, Unreal, Godot and Blender; the glTF inside is the same.
Bake3D exports glTF binary and binary FBX 7.4 (skeleton, skin weights, embedded base-colour, normal, roughness and metallic maps, one take per animation; Blender 5.2 and Godot 4.7 imports verified, Unity and Unreal imports not yet run by Bake3D). With the engine set to Roblox, each FBX holds one clip, as Roblox requires. It also writes USDZ with one baked clip per file. The free converters handle static geometry directions such as GLB to OBJ or STL.
Bring it into the engine
Unity. Install glTFast (com.unity.cloud.gltfast) from Package Manager and drop the GLB into Assets. Inspect the imported prefab, materials and AnimationClips, then use a Generic rig workflow for creatures and objects; Humanoid retargeting only fits human-like bone maps. The Unity guide has the details and the current validation status, which still lists native playback verification as in progress.
Godot. Copy the GLB into the project; Godot 4 imports skins and clips natively into a Skeleton3D and AnimationPlayer. Set the import Animation → FPS to match the export and, for a faithful first comparison, disable the animation optimizer before reimporting. The Godot guide covers the MCP add-on, which can also generate and import from inside the editor.
Blender. Use File → Import → glTF 2.0. The armature, textures and clips arrive as NLA actions. Blender is the right place to retarget, edit weights or build LODs; File → Import → FBX opens the Bake3D FBX with the same armature and action. The Blender guide shows what to check after import.
In every engine, play the clip and watch the joints under your own lighting. Skinning implementations differ slightly between viewers, and a problem that was marginal in the studio can be visible in the engine.
What you still need to add
A generated character is an asset, not a gameplay system. Colliders, a character controller, an animation state machine or blend tree, LODs, impostors and gameplay-specific materials are your project’s work. Bake3D does not make LODs or other engine-specific optimisation. For cleaner topology, choose Game-ready mesh when you bake (a rigged copy of about 7,000 to 9,500 mostly four-sided faces next to the detailed model), or use Retopologise on a finished model (about 10,000 four-sided faces, 20 credits). Otherwise the triangle count comes from the quality tier, and you can reduce it in Blender or in the engine’s tooling.
Licensing follows how the work was paid for: output made only with the free sign-up credits that older accounts received carries a personal-use licence, and anything generated with purchased credits, from any credit pack or a Pro or Studio plan, carries a commercial, royalty-free licence that stays valid after you stop paying. Both are subject to the rights in your input image. See the pricing page for the current terms.
References and testing scope
Bake3D’s release checks cover motion validation, skin weights, geometry preservation, job charging and export behaviour, with native Blender and Godot import comparisons recorded in the validation notes on the about page. The Khronos glTF 2.0 specification defines skins, animation sampling and the metre, Y-up coordinate system the exports use. Unity’s glTFast import documentation, Godot’s scene importer reference and the Blender glTF add-on manual describe each host’s import behaviour.
About this guide
Written and kept up to date by the Bake3D team. We build a tool that turns one image into a textured, rigged and animated 3D model, and we test the steps in our guides on our own files. First published . See how we write and check guides, or send a correction to hello@bake3d.ai.
Keep reading
Animation
How to Animate a 3D Model
Four ways to animate a 3D model: keyframes, motion libraries, motion capture and described motion. What each one needs and when to use it.
Blender
How to Reduce Polygon Count in Blender
Lower the polygon count of a 3D model with the Decimate modifier in Blender. Target counts for games, web and mobile, and what to check after.
File formats
How to Convert GLB to FBX (and FBX to GLB)
Convert GLB to FBX and keep the bones, skin weights and animation: a free browser converter, or Blender with the export settings that matter.