AR/VR-Ready Export Checklist for AI-Generated 3D

By Akshay Sarode · August 5, 2025 · Tutorial

A real question we keep seeing: "How do I get from AI output to an AR/VR-ready file?" The pipeline isn't hard but the gotchas catch everyone. Here's a checklist that prevents the most common breakages.

TL;DR

iOS AR Quick Look needs USDZ. Yugma exports it directly.
Android Scene Viewer accepts GLB. Yugma exports it directly.
WebXR works with the Yugma embed iframe in compatible browsers.
The 8-item checklist below keeps the experience smooth.

The checklist

1. Mesh complexity under 200k triangles

AR runtimes throttle hard above this. If you imported a high-detail Sketchfab model, decimate it before exporting USDZ.

2. Texture sizes capped at 2K

4K textures choke iOS Quick Look. Compress to 2048×2048 or smaller. PNG → JPG conversion with 85% quality saves bandwidth without visible quality loss for AR.

3. Materials use PBR

Quick Look renders Principled BSDF / Standard Surface materials. Anything custom (shader nodes, SSS, hair) won't translate. Yugma's preset materials all map cleanly.

4. Single-mesh hierarchy or shallow hierarchy

Deep nesting (5+ levels) sometimes breaks USDZ. Flatten when in doubt. Yugma's scene graph stays mostly flat by default.

5. Centered model, real-world scale

The model's origin should be at the floor, centered horizontally. Yugma exports with the world origin as the floor center by default.

6. No transparent materials at full opacity

A glass material at opacity 0 disappears in AR. Set opacity 0.3–0.6 for visible glass.

7. Lighting baked or simple

USDZ supports limited lighting. Yugma's Pro tier bakes scene lighting into vertex colors when exporting; free tier exports raw materials.

8. Test on a real device

Simulator AR is a lie. Test on the actual iPhone or Android phone. Yugma's share link includes a "Test in AR" button on iOS that opens USDZ directly.

Common failures

"Model is gray in AR": usually a missing texture URL. Re-export with embedded textures.

"AR shows a tiny model": scale issue. Check that exported scale matches real meters.

"AR crashes on iPhone": triangle count too high. Decimate.

"AR doesn't open": Safari + USDZ link issue. Make sure the link has the rel="ar" attribute and the file is served as model/vnd.usdz+zip.