procedural character generation

Thanks Caitlyn! Seriously, though, can't wait!

 

300th post woooo

but on a serious note working with the asset store team that must quite an honor.

 

Wow. Thank you and the unity team for that!

You know, I wanted to do such thing myself in the close future, but you kinda started first, so I dropped the idea.

Keep up the good work.

 

dafuq......you and Caitlyn just won the "Most awesome people of 2012/2013" - reward.

 

Wow man, nice job, free things. Go for it

 

Someone needs to create a store front for this for selling clothes/armour/accessories for this pack!

 

Will it include source code so it can be modified ?

 

Glad you guys are into this! We've tentatively code-named the system the UMA framework.. Unity Multipurpose Avatar. When I saw the excellent work Fernando has been doing, I thought this is an idea worth developing as far as possible, because the potential for customizable characters is enormous (and, because it's just so damn cool!) We on the Asset Store team are positively thrilled to be working with him to bring you the most rocking customizable next-generation avatar system possible, with complete Mecanim support planned in from the start, as well as a facial rig designed with the most popular facial animation systems in mind.

Chad M wrote: Someone needs to create a store front for this for selling clothes/armour/accessories for this pack!

That is precisely the idea here! In making the UMA framework free, we're hoping that Asset Store artists and designers out there will hop in and look for ways to contribute content, both paid and free, to expand UMA and make a never-ending supply of clothes, hair, skin textures, shoes, tattoos, beards, hats, steampunk goggles, spiked mohawks, vampire teeth, backpacks and jetpacks, helmets, army boots, zombie skins, spiked stilettos, and a million other accessories to create a whole ecosystem of avatar possibilities in diverse styles. Because UMA uses a common skinned mesh, it should be really interesting to see you guys put the Skinned Cloth system through the wringer!

We'll keep you posted, periodically, as the framework progresses.. and since this is a system we are making for you, we will of course welcome your insights and comments so we can understand and meet your expectations.

Just to be clear: The Unity Asset Store Fernando are working together to make sure UMA is fantastic and free, but it's not to be confused as an official feature as part of the Unity editor itself.

 

It's not only an honor, it's the biggest opportunity in my entire lifetime =D

 

That's really awesome, both that you have the opportunity to work with unity, and your going to create such a worthwhile tool, for free. Awesome. Can't wait to see how this turns out.

 

Sweet! I knew I had a good idea, just didn't realise how far this thing is going. Great work Fernando and Unity team (inc. Caitlyn) for recognizing the HUGE potential this could have.

*Starts working on accessories*

 

This is good i could make human characters for my Prototype on the fly before i use blender.

 

Question - Will we be able to integrate this tool into our own projects?


Just curious

 

yep! =)

 

Ok, that is a relief

Got myself worked up for no good reason

 

Wow, fantastic. I would imagine when done this would have its own tree in the asset store.

Cheers

 

Hi Fernando, i want to give you huge thanks for all your effort in this project. And hi Caitlyn, huge thanks for making this project free.
I think you have done the best; a very awesome, useful and demanded solution for we all, the game programmers.

Can't wait to see it in the asset store and playing around!!!

 

Unity saw that you were the best and knighted you.

 

You guys are the best = ))
Thanks a lot for your nice words!
Working hard to get something special for all of you!

 

i thought i would have to get modelers just for the Prototype but is possible to build up form the prototype models on blender ?

 

Sorry, don´t understand what you mean. Could you elaborate your sentence?

 

okay can i transfer the models to Blender to just edit them?

 

er nevermind i just want to know if i can morph the models from photo-realistic to stylized models

 

Sorry taking long to answer!
The main content will be open to edition, so yes, it´s possible to change the mesh basic shape to bring something close to stylized models. Also consider that there might be useful to work with textures and shader too.

 

alright the stylized models i want to resemble this
http://cdn2.steampowered.com/v/gfx/...2c133870c9d02757cb.1920x1080.jpg?t=1356562593

 

Congrats for the collab with the unity store and thanks a lot, for giving it away for free !
It looks like a great and usefull tool. I can't wait, to get my hands on it
The only thing that bugs me a bit, is the visual quality of the models itself. As caitlyn has mentioned, we will be able to change the skin texture. I guess that also includes the normal maps. Since they morph into each other, I'm afraid it won't be possible to change the meshes and topology.
Maybe you could release the Standard Base Mesh or show some wires to see, how flexible it is.
I've had a similar project inside of Autodesk Mudbox to create a huge amount of character variations and was always very pleased with its own base.
If you think about using dx11 features, it could be possible to tesselate those meshes with displacement maps. This way it would stay up to date to current and next gen integrations


Here's a result of the female base I was working on. It uses the same topology as above
http://s14.postimage.org/4omkj4601/196299_171069246278244_3306379_n.jpg

 

im really looking forward to making models with this instead on painfully making each model in blender

 

Any idea when this will be available? It would still be awesome to be able to use this in our MMO if it's released soon!

 

WOAH Florian your female model is beyond amazing, such perfect skin texture. Do you by any chance want to share your character base system that generates different base meshes? I am user of Mudbox too and something like that would be very useful.

And yeh, this system is already perfect Fernando, but feature to modify base mesh or use your own custom mesh for base would be fantastic. Maybe this could upgrade system to use it for different races, even aliens or monsters.

 

Thanks Janpec

Importing your own base mesh would indeed be a nice feature but I could understand if he decides against it.
Its a desirable goal to have system, where content creators can share and sell props, clothes, morphs or textures just like, for example, CuriousLabs is doing with Poser.
The system only works, if the custom created meshes, know where to be placed, in relation to the base. I guess via Vertex ID.
For example, a jacket that was modeled on the average base but automaticly fits on the deformed fat guy. If everyone could work on his own base and sells content, potential customers would allways have to worry about, if the props are compatible with the base.

The main idea why it gets supported by unity itself is to give the option to create a huge library of user generated content (and earn money in the asset store), which is cool. I would love to create content (and earn money) but if the base mesh is weak or limited, it could easily become a dead end.

As a mudbox sculptor, you probably know how flexible the base is. It would be great, if it has an anonymous, regular quad based topology, like the mudbox mesh. Its like a wonderful blank canvas for sculptors. Its easier to animate, easier to hide underneath clothes and can be used for everything like robots, aliens, monsters, toonish characters from males, to females to shemales. The possibilties are endless
Having extra loops and definied muscles could be a guide for creators without much knowledge of anatomy but it gets complicated when you are aiming for something else, than naked, muscular males.
Since the system uses deformation and supports normals, there's really no need, for pre-defiend anatomical topology but It would limit it, right from the start.
Long story short...PLEASE Fernando ! Don't f this up ! :mrgreen:

@Janpec. Sorry, I can't share my mudbox bases because of licence issues but here'es an example of some random personal sculpts, based on the mudbox mesh

BEWARE ! 90MB and lots of nudity ! NUDITY !!!
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36367206/BasesU4Web/BasesU4Web.html

 

three is no way i can make stylized human characters with your thing Florian

 

challenge accepted Show me a picture. How stylized do you want it to be ?

 

a hybrid of Team fortress 2 and the incredibles

 

Yes yes! When can we get this in the asset store?

 

Wow!
I´m out for some days and we get a lot of posts =D Lol
But seriously, I´m working hard to get a very flexible base mesh : )) I´ve been spending the last days redesigning basemesh to reach more variation and better silhouette.
I´ll manage to post information about topology in the next days!
One thing that I would like to ask for your opinion:

Feet fingers on base mesh, yes or no? What do you prefer??? Shoes would hide them most of the time, but do you think they would be important enough to get additional vertices?

 

I don't think they are needed, unless someone wants to make a foot-fetish game

 

Feet fingers shouldn't be that important for the release version so add them later

 

More any opinion about that?

 

I would say fingers are certainly needed. Feet not so much so when you first release. Games like People Simulators like the Sims would need feet since you don't wear shoes to bed.

 

Humm, not sure if I made myself clear here. What I mean is, for your projects, is it important that the base mesh have feet fingers, or finger shape can be handled using normal maps, as I´ve been doing so far?

Example image:

 

Never thought about adding toes through normal maps... I don't think each individual toe would need to be animated so yeah doing it through Normal Maps seems ok to me!

 

Thanks for the answer guys =)
I´ll keep an eye here for your opinion concerning this.

 

I think normal maps would probably be fine, but I'm wondering if you have a close up of feet with the toes created by normal maps? This would really make it clear what the overall quality difference would be.

 

That´s the kind of consideration I´m having here.
The matter is: close up of feet will happen for you guys? Should we consider that?

 

toes should be an option but no toes can be hidden . To save time and memory when animating Ratatouille , human characters were designed and animated without toes.

 

What do you mean with "no toes can be hidden"? Not sure If I got what you mean.
Thanks for your answer

 

no toes can be hidden = always have them wear shoes and hide there feet.

 

First of all ...Something told me, you had a very good reason, for being away. Congratz on that

Feet/Fingers:
What excatacly do you mean, with "additional" vertices ?
Fingers would definitly be needed. At least four sided.

Dx11 and tesselation may be a long way but it could be placed above that, later. If that happens, it would still be impossible to displace fingers out of nothing but you could easily get some toes.
Since feet/toes are short on humans and not as "focus-worthy" like hands, nobody would miss them. The shading on a normal mapped, closed geometry, would probably look more realistic than lowpoly toes. ...and most humans wear clothes anyway.

In terms of polycount, its a difficult decission, where to go with this thing. Some parts read as a "one click create thousands on IOS" solution and other, like a "create main DX11 hero" thing. What about an LOD system ?

 

We need more games like that !

 

Yes please fingers, no need to spend too much polys on it, but they should be there.