Creating a 3D model for 3D App Launcher

Former Employee

Jan 15, 2019

First published on MSDN on Jan 23, 2018
Bored about the classic 2D tile for representing you Windows Mixed Reality app in the Cliff House? Go to the next level:

Use a 3D model that characterizes and differentiates your app!

Here is a summary of the steps to achieve this.

1. Make your model ready for Windows Mixed Reality

From your favorite apps/tools, export a 3D model as glTF 2.0 with the .glb extension (As an exemple, I took a model from 3D Remix and exported it by Paint 3D)

⚠ The model must have less than 10k triangles. If you get a red cross instead of the 3D Launcher, this could be the root cause

Download the WindowsMRAssetConverter.exe from the glTF-Toolkit on gitHub - https://github.com/Microsoft/glTF-Toolkit/releases

Simply use the WindowsMRAssetConverter.exe tool with your model (.glb file) as parameter:

2. Add your converted model as content to the App project

Build your Windows Mixed Reality project from Unity generating the Visual Studio C# Solution

Open the built Windows Mixed Reality C# solution in Visual Studio. Right click on the UWP project in the SOLUTION EXPLORER window and choose ADD / EXISTING ITEM…

Make sure that the BUILD ACTION for the added .glb file is set to CONTENT

3. Use your converted model in the App manifest

Open the Package.appxmanifest with a text editor (or right click on it in Visual Studio and then VIEW CODE )

Add the uap5 schema in the Package item at the begining of the file:

xmlns:uap5="http://schemas.microsoft.com/appx/manifest/uap/windows10/5"

Also add uap5 in the IgnorableNamespaces list:

IgnorableNamespaces="uap uap2 uap5 mp"

The Package.appxmanifest file will start like the following:

Modify the DefaultTile element to integrate a uap5:MixedRealityModel element like:

<uap5:MixedRealityModel Path="MyModel_converted.glb"/>
The entire uap:DefaultTile element will look like this

4. Build and deploy the app for testing

Build your UWP project either in x86 or x64

Lastly, deploy the app to the local machine (Right click on the project in SOLUTION EXPLORER and then DEPLOY ;

Here is the result when we place the App tile in the Cliff House :confetti_ball::party_popper: ( Tomato model from Remix 3D )

Happy 3D App Launcher modeling 😉

@sbovo for the :laptop_computer: :video_game: Windows AppConsult team.