procedural character generation

Thanks @Virror =D
About facial bones, I would recommend baking the head changes and removing the facial bones at runtime, after all customization has been done.

 

Sice I´ve done my tests, things got way more simple =D
http://www.faceshift.com/unity/

 

Thanks virror, that should sum it up.

 

That looks really great. I tried to quickly get it running, however, some issues:
There is almost no use unless a bunch of (all?) blend shapes expected by FaceShift have been defined in the model. The default male/female UMA prefabs don't seem to have any. Has anyone made that work before? I'd do it, but I have no idea how... could somebody give me a pointer? Could I just make the blend shapes in Blender by changing some bones in pose mode? With the .blend in the UMA content pack?

Second, more problematic: the animation clips created by the FaceShift plugin are not retargetable. ("Animation clip 'TestSpeech' is not retargetable. Animation clips used within the Animator Controller need to have Muscle Definition set up in the Asset Importer Inspector"). This means I can't use them from Mecanim - and I'm not sure yet how well Legacy animations and Mecanim mix on the same rig... Is that fixable? Or am I just thinking wrong (what use would the faceshift plugin be if we couldn't use it on actual avatars?).

 

Back when I tested it, I had to retarget animations myself on blender to UMA facial rig.
I did a nice retarget solution that automated the process, so that extra facial animation could then easly be included later.

 

I dug through the FaceShift plugin scripts, and found a comment that confirms that it only works with characters imported as legacy, so no mecanim support.

Did your pipeline create animations that could be driven with Mecanim?

Sadly, it's not at all clear to me what you actually did. Did you map the different FaceShift blend shapes to bone poses? With what tool? How were then unity/mecanim-compatible, bone only animations created?

 

Ohh sorry, didn´t remembered that before. Back when I tested it, unity didn´t had launched Mecanim.
I take you would need mecanim generic avatar to handle that, I didn´t spent enough time on this area.

 

Mr. Clean, come look at my code. It's a mess!

 

I would like to know UMA animation system

Can UMA assist interaction animation like hug, hand shake, high five ?

My goal is to create a game like Sims...

 

UMA uses Mecanim, so any humanoid animation can be retargeted. The benefit using UMA is that knowing the base mesh and rig, it´s easier to predict final volume of the bodies and implement more precise interaction.

Cheers

 

A different question: Is there any more information about the rig? I'm wondering, when animating the avatar through script, should I, or should I not use the "adjust" bones? Am I right in assuming that the "adjust" bones are those used for customizing the characters, rather than animating them? Or does this have nothing to d with this?

 

I covered the UMA Rig a long time ago on this video:

You´re right, usually you don´t want top animate the adjust bones, as they are used for shape variation. =)
Cheers

 

Ah thank you for your response, clear now!

 

Hey guys, Ive been reading this thread for a while, but this is my first post.
Brilliant work Fernando.
I am working on a toon style set of characters, I had actually already put one model on the store when my first customer, Goat, told me about this thread.
Ive now started to update my models to work with UMA, ive only really done a few hours playing around with it, id love to hear your thoughts on my progress and any ideas you might have. Ive put progress here on my blog: http://bwilkinsonart.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/uma-and-toon-team.html
Im sure any insight you all have will be useful. Thanks!

 

that's it that's the toon look I'm looking for.

 

Hi there!
First of all, congratulations for your amazing work one the AssetStore content =) Really happy looking at your first results at the link.
There´s a forth possible solution that might be useful for you, but it´s a bit tricky: You can have a different topology with slight more toon shape on body if you´re able to keep vertices below the original body mesh while preserving overal shape variation. In this case, even having a different base mesh, you would be able to keep UMA standard clothes working.
Send me a PM if you consider this solution, so I can give you some tips.
See ya

 

hehehe as soon I saw his content I couldn´t remember anyone but you

 

i wonder why am i last on getting information

 

Thanks Fernando! Yes I think this will work, it will just need more topology than your mesh, and possibly a softer skin weight all over so the mesh is a bit more "squishy". The head is a similar but more detailed problem.
I do need some help getting it into UMA/Unity, ill PM you now.

 

What kind of content are you looking for? Once i get the base working im basically going into mass production mode!

 

well Stylized toon shapes for both male and female uma avatars.

 

Cool ok. Are you going to make outfits yourself or are you looking for those too? I think to achieve a toon style its going to be a combination of body shape texture content and shader.

 

i havent figured it out yet im just waiting for ORK to intergrate UMA

 

Sometime next year I'll be needing 'girly' content. Princess type. Long hair. Styled hair. Skirts. Hopefully dresses if UMA can handle it.

I'm going to try myself but I don't know if I'm a good enough modeler.


Andy

 

Well, maybe Fernando can chime in but I haven't seen any dresses or skirts yet. Would such things need to be modeled using 'Unity Cloth'?

 

Hey guys =)

I´ve tested a dress some time ago, it works quite well =D

 

Thanks.

 

Hi Fernando,

Congratulations on a great free unity package. Definitely something that has been lacking with the Unity engine for a long time.

I have some questions which are probably basic ones but would help me decide if i will use UMA on my latest Social MMORG game.

1. Can different mesh details be used with your system and stay compatible with all your support stuff in the package.
e.g. can i use a mesh say 10K, 15K, 20K, 25K polygons etc ?

2. Why are you doing anything specific with Mecanim? When i have imported the DAZ3D meshes into Unity and linked them up to my Mecanim State Controller they retarget and work out of the box. Does the UMA character mesh do the same? I thought i saw some distorted UMA mesh model not working correctly.

3. I think you are over simplifying the "Poke Through Issue" when you say that simply getting the bone influence mapping correct will solve this problem. The real issues you will face are that many of the dresses, clothing will come from other mesh creation tools such as DAZ-3D. Can you comment on why MegaFiers Wrap Deformer is needed and yet magically the UMA does'nt need it !


4. I very much like that you can bake Second Life textures onto the UMA character. Can you comment on the mesh sizes here? If we had a very detailed UMA mesh (lets say three times that of the SL mesh) with similar body volume will the bake process still work correctly?

5. How modular is your morph target system in UMA? Can for example we delete and add our own blend shapes and is there a way to map the DAZ-3D morph's onto a UMA character?

6. Your hair model generation very cartoon like, was that intended?

7. The UMA project needs some serious skin shading and Sub Surfice Scattering to give it a more WOW factor.

 

Fernando, Have you thought about making the hand bone a child of the forearm twist bone? (it is currently a brother/sister) Then when the character twists the forearm the hand will turn with it, which is more accurate to how real arms work.

 

Sorry for all the questions!

 

Ohh, it´s usually the opposite, twist bones don´t affect other bones, they should receive influence of relative bone rotation.
In our case, Sadly Mecanim don´t actually use twist bones, instead it just adjust the amount of roll propagated between bones to handle twist.
What we do is check hand relative rotation and have a special script on avatars to handle twist rotation dinamically.

 

No problem at all, if you agree, I´ll post and reply your other questions here as well, they will help other devs
I might be able to answer those at night.
Cheers =D

 

R1: Yep, you can use more complex or simplified meshes. If you´re able to keep overall shape, clothes will fit correctly.

R2: The only different step we do is to actually create an unique mecanim avatar for UMAs, to handle body variation and properly handle IK for PRO users and Root motion. All humanoid animations can be retargeter to UMAs exactly the same way you do for any other avatar.

R3: Sorry, I never used MegaFiers Wrap Deformer so I can´t really compare both. It´s also possible using body meshes while removing occluded vertices on UMA, both for optimization and to completely handle "Poke Through Issue" in case of poor or inefficient skinning data. Female tshirt has some slight Poke Through in some specific extreme poses.

R4: You just need to load the textures on the mesh I had already adjusted, this way, there´s no issue with diffrent SL body sizes

R5: UMA don´t use blend shapes at all, the solution I´ve implemented end being more flexible for cloth intergration. You have full freedom setting body shapes to UMA avatars.

R6: I don´t have good skills for hair modelling, that´s why they suck

R7: You should take a look on Joen´s shaders, they hadle SSS. Please keep in mind you can write your own shaders for UMA, and create your own hair and content as well Visual style can be range from realistic to toon.

I recommend you taking a look on UMA documentation for further detail
http://fernandoribeirogames.wix.com/umabeta#!documentation/c48r

 

Ah I see. That's a good solution. I was looking at it in max so I didnt know it did that.

Please do post the question/answers to my other questions.

Thanks

 

How did you make that animated image by the way?

 

This image is just a GIF I generated using photoshop. I believe there might be a way to do the same on GIMP as well.

R1: Yep, this is possible. I´m aware of a dev doing this. You would need to create a script to compare original bones pos/scale/rot and actual values (I recommend setting those changes as keyframes, instead of actually changing the bone structure), and use delta values for the interpolating based on "slider".

R2: Sure! This would work really well =) you can both swap normal maps or do a blend between them, based on any value. You would basically be working on body overlay for this. Keep in mind blending normal maps of full body not aways provides great results.

R3: Sorry, ZBrush files don´t contain the separated meshes, but those are available on .blend file and fbx. I keep the head modules aways having the same junction areas to get it working.

R4:Sure! Just take a look on the shaders provided to understand the difference, it´s quite simple.

R5: Humm, that one is tricky, as changing the volume of the body directly would bring the same change to the belt. Handling this with extra bones would require a lot of them, as you would have to avoid using scale... The same happens if those were overlays, as texture would suffer the deformation of the mesh. there´s no simple way to handle that, as far I can think.

 

Thanks for the ultra quick reply to my questions. Just a few more based on what you said to clarify things ))

R3: Sorry, I never used MegaFiers Wrap Deformer so I can´t really compare both. It´s also possible using body meshes while removing occluded vertices on UMA, both for optimization and to completely handle "Poke Through Issue" in case of poor or inefficient skinning data. Female tshirt has some slight Poke Through in some specific extreme poses.

Is the removal of occluded vertices working in UMA? Or is this an approach you hope to get working at some point?

R5: UMA don´t use blend shapes at all, the solution I´ve implemented end being more flexible for cloth intergration. You have full freedom setting body shapes to UMA avatars.

Without being too critical since its easy to be that way for no reason! Your non-blend shape modifier solution looks like it handles lots of variation of ugly looking shapes. Great for a monster game ! however my social game requires beauty, smooth lines, subtle changes in cheek bone and facial curvature. Is this possible with your system? I know it was mentioned that keeping the sliders close to their mid-points helps with this. But does blend shaping give more beautiful results than your system? So far i have not seen any beautiful smooth looking ladies to tell me it does? In fact all the demonstrations showing other systems do exactly this beautiful looking stuff so is it because of the way your doing shape modification?

Is your shape modification system easy to change or we are relying on your shape modification technique to give us the look we want?

R7: You should take a look on Joen´s shaders, they hadle SSS. Please keep in mind you can write your own shaders for UMA, and create your own hair and content as well Visual style can be range from realistic to toon.

Understood ! Might as well put a WOW skin shader into the default package as it will boost the popularity of UMA over night.

 

GXMark, why don't you just download it and try it out? Should answer many of your questions : )

 

Why do i have to download it when this blog is so fantastic and so many are doing that for me !

 

Because it's more easy haha :3

 

Thanks for your reply! I will keep playing and post my progress

 

Look forward to it.

 

You mean its easier to avoid the hard questions?

 

Hey GXMark, Fernando's not been avoidant of questions.

I'll try to answer your last two questions, but Fernando can correct me when I'm wrong:

1.
a. Is the removal of occluded vertices working in UMA?

Removing occluded vertices isn't done for example on the female t-shirt. Or under the female hair, or the male jeans or in non-visible part of the eyes. The rest of the clothing and such is texture overlays. There are about 9K vertices per mesh with one light no shadows. Even so performance is very good and the meshes are nice and flexible. I understand they aren't up the flexibility of the DAZ 3D Genesis characters and the associated morphs (Chibi for example) but that system has a huge staff of seasoned experts, many with 20 years in the business. However, it cost $500 for a commercial DAZ 3D license for games and even their low levels of detail tend to be too much for most game hardware platforms. Fernando and Unlogick created this system in a very productive year.

b. Or is this an approach you hope to get working at some point?

That's something Fernando would need to answer.

2.
a. Is your shape modification system easy to change or we are relying on your shape modification technique to give us the look we want?

I think the characters are attractive, what I think you might find unattractive is the textures in certain parts of an avatar after you morph a part. Since these avatars are low poly and use textures to disguise that they are low poly (a ploy typical of all game engine art work); they are not going to match a holy-poly DAZ Genesis character when morphed. A possible remedy to this problem would be to program a preset number of morphs or bracket the morphs into ranges in advance and then develop customized textures for each of these preset morphs selections or morph ranges. Then you could substitute or blend textures as the morph slider is around one of the previously defined morph 'borders' and switch from a 'muscular texture' to a 'average texture' to an 'obese texture'.

As far as modifying the shapes the provided morphs already provided are rather flexible but E2R_Ben has already made substantial progress towards modifying 'shape bones' to create a cartoon look and asked a question similar to the 'texture swap in changing morph ranges' discussed above. He's an experienced 3D modeler where as I am not and it's still taking him a substantial amount of work to get as far as he has. You could modify the 'shape bones' in the face, add more vertices to the nose, ears, eyes, mouth, and head and add the extra shape bones where needed to give an exotic range of face shapes. You'll need to create texture maps and such to take advantage of the extra details you've added.

Finally, this is the 1st system release of UMA. It has a fine set of example meshes and textures but it's not meant to be comprehensive. Even DAZ isn't comprehensive. UMA's been given an MIT license and it's meant that those interested download and program it, create and modify art assets and give or sell them back to the UMA community. A year from now UMA should be really making a good contribution to Unity apps.

 

okay i found a good example of modular Desgin for hair sure its stylized but its a good example http://www.pinterest.com/pin/127930445638900414/

 

Hi there GXMark,
You might have noticed we have more than one thousand posts here on this forum thread, those include complex questions and detailed replies both from me and other developers already working with UMA and willing to share their experience.
Documentation and the more than 3 hours video tutorials are meant to be the first step on understanding how UMA works. It´s clear it´s easier to ask directly do developers, specially when they are available to answer as I work hard to be. Please keep in mind UMA is an open source project, and it´s main purpose in the end is to help creating a community that can work together and share content and experience on avatar creation and customization.

Cheers =)

 

Like i said think what your doing is fantastic.

Thanks for all your help

 

Thanks! Hope you have fun with UMA

 

New UMA race Wood Elves the community designed for the game Neos Land which is part of the pledge Developers Package Assets you get on Neos land website. We will be doing a series of UMA characters that we will be placing on the asset store as well like this one. Neos Land website

 

Awesome!!!
Does this character asset has armor that can be swapped for different parts?