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[Released] Morph Character System (MCS) - Male and Female

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by berk-maketafi, Sep 17, 2015.

  1. shredingskin

    shredingskin

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    Any tips on doing that ?
     
  2. ceebeee

    ceebeee

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    Unfortunately this is only partly true, As they designed their system so it injects the blend shapes at runtime, they aren't included in the model. So while you could convert it to UMA, it would have no blend shapes at all. (and this is probably the only reason I haven't done what you describe, because my application requires the blend shapes for lipsync among other things.
     
  3. RonnyDance

    RonnyDance

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    I agree. The blend shapes specially like teeth changes etc. were the reason to use and buy this asset. Ofc UMA is becoming really good right now. Didn't have time to look into it, but its really sad to lost all the bought morph3d clothes etc.
     
  4. Jaimi

    Jaimi

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    Simplest thing to do is to take the clothes/hair and then retarget them to one of the UMA races (like the built-in models, or willb's human 2 or O3n's races) in Blender, and then build slots out of them. SecretAnorak has a bunch of videos that show exactly what to do.

    You can also retarget the people to be UMA slots and make your own races. But you'll need to add adjustment bones or blendshapes for that also. But the high-res UMA models are good, and willb's and the O3N races are good also (O3n has a complete set of LOD slots also).

    With more work, you could reskin the models to the UMA meshes as well, if you like that specific M3D texture look.

    It's still doable, but does require more work if you want to keep the m3d base meshes (personally I would ditch them, and bring over just the cloths/hair/textures). If you use one of the existing UMA races, then you have the built-in facial rig for lipsyncing (it's supported by Lipsync Pro and Salsa, as well as there is a built-in expression system for setting up your own).

    If you do want to bring over the meshes, then there are several ways to do it: Just add adjustment bones everywhere and reweight your model. Retarget your model to the existing UMA rig (in blender, you line it all up, change the armature to point to the UMA rig, and then copy the vertex groups over using the Data Transfer too (using "interpolated polygon" for best results).

    Anyway, it's all doable, some routes are easier than others.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2018
  5. EDarkness

    EDarkness

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    I wish someone would come up with an easier solution that can be modded easier than this with better performance across the board. There was always the prospect that M3D was going to nail it eventually, but they gave up and dangled the upcoming performance changes in front of our face for a long time. Ultimately they never delivered. I've messed around with UMA, but I still feel like it's just not easy to use at all and the art isn't as appealing as M3D.
     
  6. hopeful

    hopeful

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    UMA is not art, though some default art is supplied with it, otherwise you could not run demos. You can use the M3D art inside UMA.
     
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  7. Jaimi

    Jaimi

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    It's much easier to use now, and getting easier all the time. If you don't like the current art, there are alternatives, and free tools to make your own or convert existing art. It's also very fast - that's why it exists. It combines meshes and creates texture atlases on the fly for you, and it has a built-in LOD system for textures and meshes (using the LOD for slots requires you to precreated LOD slots, or you can use a 3rd party tool to auto create them).
     
    BackwoodsGaming and hopeful like this.
  8. DMCH

    DMCH

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    Hi all. It's unfortunate that Morph isn't being supported at present. Since Fuse has been abandoned, it would seem there is an opportunity for an alternative. I'm considering using it still. I don't need the morph at runtime capabilities - instead, I'll make up the characters and prefab them. Have seen performance issues mentioned a few times - would anyone care to elaborate?

    Also does anyone have experience in doing the following? Experimenting along these lines at the minute
    1. Taking the meshes at a given LOD, and combining them (to reduce draw calls)
    2. The effects of removing the M3D scripts? I'm not sure of the overhead of, or bugs within, these scripts is and since am only interested in mesh, considering pulling them out.
     
  9. hopeful

    hopeful

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    If you haven't investigated it, you can use Fuse and M3D art (meshes, textures) in UMA, and this will combine the meshes and atlas the textures. You will not need the M3D scripts, which have always been a weak spot.

    As noted above, UMA is all about using custom art. So take a simple mesh from Fuse or M3D and convert it to UMA for the practice. Once you have the steps down, there's basically no stopping you. ;)

    If you want the M3D blendshapes, you'll have to implement them yourself in Blender (or any other modeler). As of the last version or so, UMA is able to use blendshapes. (I've not used that yet, as so far I've been content to work with UMA's adjust bones, but eventually I'll start using blendshapes.)
     
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  10. DMCH

    DMCH

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    Thanks for the answer. Is there any benefit to combining the meshes in UMA, as opposed to using a mesh combine tool I already own? Was also wondering if UMA can do anything with the open jaw issue? I noticed that this can be fixed by setting jaw values to 0 on animations, but wondering if there is a less tedious way.

    It seems like there are an excessive number of bones exposed in M3D models (also that some may be duplicated, or at least the references are)
     
  11. Jaimi

    Jaimi

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    The UMA generator is really fast. in addition to LOD, it can also create smaller textures and smaller atlases for use in performance tuning (you can downsample entire atlases or individual textures in the atlas). It includes an entire wardrobe system to manage model parts, and you can add models, textures, and even entire races through downloadable asset bundles.

    For open-jaw, yes - you can do two things: You can use the avatar that doesn't have the jaw setup (by changing the tpose asset on the race to the included "no jaw" version), or if you need the jaw for something, you can add the "expression player" to the character, and tell it to keep the jaw closed.
     
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2018
    DMCH likes this.
  12. hopeful

    hopeful

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    You'll want to research UMA a little more. Probably downloading the latest UMA package (it's free) from the Unity asset store and running the demos would give you a good idea of what's going on.

    Essentially, UMA is a programming kit that helps you swap clothing items, hair, etc. and change the dimensions of various body parts on the characters. It's most often used to allow players to customize their own characters, though sometimes developers use it as an in-editor solution for making a large number of unique characters quickly.

    Characters are stored as recipes, which may be sent dynamically over a network to allow multiplayer games with customized player characters.

    As for the open jaw, that's a default behavior of Unity's mecanim implementation. So you do always need to have a solution, but it's easy to implement.

    Basically, if you like the Morph 3D character art, but you're having difficulty using it, a possible solution would be input it into UMA and use it there.
     
    DMCH likes this.
  13. DMCH

    DMCH

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    Appreciate the info, Jaimi and hopeful. Spent a good part of the day waiting for a large project (50GB) to migrate to an updated version of Unity, as it seemed better to test the models on a current version. Watched quite a few of the UMA videos while this was happening. It looks neat.
     
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  14. DMCH

    DMCH

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    Hi again. My experiments with M3D suggest that it's very difficult to optimise the meshes and prevent the body overlapping through the clothes. It's possible to morph the clothes size to avoid this, but when the meshes are combined only the top mesh can be altered. Has anyone had any luck with this?

    If I import the meshes into UMA, is it possible to work around this problem?
     
  15. Jaimi

    Jaimi

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    This is solved in UMA using three different strategies, all setup in the "wardrobe recipe" definition for the particular piece of clothing.
    • When a piece of clothing completely hides a part of the base mesh, you can turn off that part of the base mesh by name (for example, placing a shirt on a character might completely hide the "chest").
    • When a piece of clothing completely covers another piece of clothing, it can be suppressed: Example, you can specify that a pair of jeans hides anything that is in the "underwear" slot.
    • You can specify on the recipe that a piece of clothing hides specific polygons on other pieces of clothing or the base mesh (if they exist). There is a nice little painter that lets you go in and "paint" the polygons you want to hide, and does automatic overlap detection, etc.
    These can all interact, so you can create an overcoat that does the following: hides the base chest. Turns off any shirt the character is wearing. And then hides the polygons on the top part of the pants and legs.

    edit: let's keep the discussion here since it's really about using the Morph3D assets in UMA.
     
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  16. Shadex

    Shadex

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    So i upgraded to 2019.1 as 2018.3 was crashing all the time. Morph3d's blendshapes are all over the place. It looks like the prefabs are ripped apart. It lead me to hear. Haven't checked the forum in a while, only to find that this seems abandoned and broke. I, like many of you, have invested a lot of time and money into this, and am worried about the new unity updates breaking this with no updates to fix it.

    So what is the current state of morph3d.

    I noticed people here are talking about using morph3d via UMA. Are there any tutorials on this, or best practices?

    If using UMA, will blendshapes still work? Is there a way to use the current morph3d blendshapes with UMA?

    I'm really unclear on what my options are. I was using morph3d to create custom enemy's and player. For instance, Orc's and Goblins using blendshapes and retexturing them. Is this path essentially closed now?
     
  17. hopeful

    hopeful

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    If there's someone out there who is doing something very much like what you're doing, they could give you a better answer. But in lieu of that, I can at least say that UMA accepts the art you provide, but - generally speaking - it has to be passed through a 3D modeling program (like Blender) in order to weight the new meshes to an UMA skeleton. This is normal for integrating any art to UMA.

    So you can bring a M3D body into Blender and weight it to an UMA skeleton, then also bring in M3D top clothing, bottom clothing, and so forth, and re-weight it all (which can be as simple as a button push, per item, but you might want to get a little fancier with it, too). Then add these re-weighted mesh pieces to your UMA slot library, the textures for them to the UMA overlay library, and so on. Then you can use UMA to create characters using these meshes and textures either in editor, or your players can use them to customize characters in game.

    UMA can use blendshapes in addition to its adjustment bones (which are more performant). Is there a quick way to get the function you wanted for your game in UMA? IDK for sure, but in theory yes. You ought to be able to replicate the M3D blendshapes and get the same results, but I don't have direct experience with that myself, as I'm still using UMA's adjuster bones for body customization, and haven't really got into blendshapes yet.
     
  18. DMCH

    DMCH

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    Hey Shadex. That's lousy. Hope it works out.

    I've been trying to figure out whether to go down the Morph3D route for the past few weeks, and have decided to. Your requirements may be quite different, but I was looking for a diverse range of decent looking models, which could be well optimised. They won't be seen close up, and blend shapes aren't required.

    I can't speak for blendshapes, but I've been able to deal with skin poking through clothes using Mesh Maker, and optimise the models (often to a single setpass call) using Mesh Baker. I also pulled all the M3D scripts, as have no way of knowing what they are doing, and what the overhead is.

    Considered the possibility of importing clothes into UMA, but having no skill at 3D modelling, decided that the time it would take would be to the detriment of the project. If you're familiar with Blender the situation may well be different.



    shows some of the process. If you aren't a modeller (or don't have the time to learn) UMA would likely only be workable for a game with a fantasy setting, as there's very few assets outside that setting.
     
    Last edited: Dec 21, 2018
  19. hopeful

    hopeful

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    While it's true that most of the clothing in the UAS that is already weighted to the default UMA skeleton is mainly fantasy genre, it's fairly easy to adapt clothing from any asset store character to UMA. But it is something you'll have to invest time in to learn, because even just moving meshes and manipulating them in Blender is going to require some learning. And you'll need to know the proper settings for exporting into Unity. But once you've got it, you're good to go. :)

    Oh, and the Secret Anorak tutorial videos for UMA are like gold!
     
  20. dazpants1

    dazpants1

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    Hi,

    I have used the Morph3d MCS models on a few occasions but i have noticed in the newer versions of Unity 2018, that none of the Ethan animations or Mixamo animations work now.

    The character just stays in the T-Pose, even after trying the tutorials on Morph3d's website in case i had missed something.

    After trying to change settings in the animations and all other settings i could think of, i still cant get the animations to work.

    Has anyone else had this issue or know of a way to fix this?

    Just as a side note, the Unity Stadard Assets 3rd person control still works fine with Ethan, so i know the issue is with the Morph3d MCS model only in the newer version of Unity.

    Thanks in advance
    Daz
     
  21. GridManiac

    GridManiac

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    Hi,

    I bought this asset and now looking for a normal map with more muscle details for athletic character. Darius has very good one, but maybe some assets include better maps, if there are, I would buy it.

    Thank you.
     
  22. Groggsy

    Groggsy

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    Hi,

    Anyone know how to create custom animations for MCS?
    I am using 3ds Max so I am guessing would need the same or matching rig?

    Many thanks!
     
  23. dazpants1

    dazpants1

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    Ok, i have managet to get this working partially by forcing T-Pose in the avatar config. Not perfect but works to some degree.
     
  24. solarflare_s

    solarflare_s

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    Hi we are running into an issue using Morph3D.
    We are randomising lots of morph3d values onto a character.
    We are then saving out frame sequences of these.
    They look fine in the game view, but in the png sequences, any objects that we have parented to bones in the hierarchy appear a few frames in front.
    It's like the skinned meshrender is behind in time.
    If we turn the morphs off, then they are in sync.

    Anyone have any idea what could be causing this???
     
  25. sranderson87

    sranderson87

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    Hi, I'm trying to add an asset (https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/props/tools/surgical-instruments-37581) to a MCS Female character as a prop attached to the hand. I've succeeded in attaching the prop to the character's hand, but upon playing the scene the character breaks and disappears, leaving only the clothing/hair/props visible around the figure, but no skin or body. When I play the scene, I get the following error:
    NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
    MORPH3D.COSTUMING.CostumeItem.setLODLevel (Single lodlevel, Boolean broadcast_change). I'm using MCS v1.6.4 and Unity Version 2018.2.5f1. I'm new to Unity so any help you can offer would be appreciated!
     

    Attached Files:

  26. StevanJay

    StevanJay

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    The devs have been completely unresponsive in this forum for many months now - I have had some luck in the past emailing support@morph3d.com or contacting jjanzer_morph directly, but even he seems to be increasingly unresponsive...

    There's one other thing you can try though - there was an unreleased build, version 1.6.5.1, that you can download the .dll files through this forum. Sometimes that fixes issues people have here... Do a search for "unreleased build" on this forum, and look for the post from jjanzer_morph to find it.

    Good luck!
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2019
  27. Manafai

    Manafai

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    Hi, I'm a fairly new user to MCS but there's something I just couldn't figure out after searching for a while.

    My artist created a fat male character and added his own custom clothing using Morph3D's own tool called Artist Tools. On his own unity project, the custom clothing he created scale with the characters body proportions just fine (I saw this for myself) and exported the character he created along with all related resources as a unity package. When I import this package, the clothing don't scale with the character at all. Any part of the characters body that is not covered by clothes does scale up properly, but the clothing stay the same size despite the character outline showing up as increasing in size. Any idea what might be causing this?
     
    XCO likes this.
  28. shredingskin

    shredingskin

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    Is it possible to just use the rigged meshes without the morph3D scripts ?
    At this point I'm in love with the models and outfits, but man, the character system is broken.
     
    hopeful likes this.
  29. Gladyon

    Gladyon

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    It's been nearly 2 years since the last update on the AssetStore, and more than 3 years since the last post from the author of this thread.
    I think that it's safe to say that this asset is dead, which is a real shame.
     
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  30. Quique-Martinez

    Quique-Martinez

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    What is a shame is Asset Store does not prevent potential buyers about this fact. I've seen a lot of discontinued assets included in sales.
     
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  31. Gladyon

    Gladyon

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    To be fair, some assets may be old but still in perfect working conditions.
    For example, audio assets, textures or models may not need to be updated so often.

    But you're right, I doubt that there's something on the AssetStore to prevent assets not updated recently enough to be in sales.
    In fact, when there's a dll or any source code there should be an automatic warning displayed on the AssetStore to warn potential buyers.
     
  32. StevanJay

    StevanJay

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    Yep, in principle, absolutely... There was a discussion earlier on this forum about adapting the assets to use with UMA - do a forum search for "UMA" and you should be able to find it.
     
  33. hopeful

    hopeful

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    One of the Morph3D representatives visited the forum a couple days ago, though you wouldn't know it from this thread. They also answered questions in this thread less than a year ago, stopping around May 2018.

    The original poster was not the only company representative.

    The last activity by Morph3D in the store was August of 2017. So a year and a half ago.

    As I've mentioned many times in the thread, I think the art is great, but the company's software has never quite worked. I think there's always been a showstopper bug of some kind. So take this as an art asset that you'd need to plug into a system of your own, or plug into UMA. UMA can help you integrate asset bundles, networking, saving player customizations, and stuff like that, and it's free, so it's worth checking out.

    UMA's got a new update coming that looks great, BTW. It's at RC3, so it's in development on github, and not in the UAS yet.
     
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  34. EDarkness

    EDarkness

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    I just think that UMA is a little too complicated to mess with. Which is why I stopped and haven't really messed with it in a while. I figured Morph3D would be better since it's much easier to get it into my game and actually use it. The problem has always been in how they've done things and not looking at the real needs of game development (size, speed, easy access to functions, etc.). Even so it was pretty easy to get it working out of the box.
     
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  35. shredingskin

    shredingskin

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    RIght now using morph3D with the HDRP shaders, got the body to cull using the autodesk masked shader and the mask provided with the clothes, but can only be used to cull one part of clothing (which is fine for me right now).
    Just deactivated the lods, and stuff is kinda working (using the thread dll).
    Still, get console errors when quitting playmode, but what gives.
    And the eyes are white, can't get them to work, someone got the same problem ?
    If someone manages to use it with UMA could do a tutorial ? The art here is top notch, there's not much good free/cheap rigged 3d characters.
    There's no hope this will get updated right ? So many blendshapes probably aren't doing the performance any favors.
     
  36. Gladyon

    Gladyon

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    These posts may help:
    https://forum.unity.com/threads/rel...s-male-and-female.355675/page-56#post-3154438
    https://forum.unity.com/threads/rel...s-male-and-female.355675/page-61#post-3271030
    https://forum.unity.com/threads/rel...s-male-and-female.355675/page-65#post-3430318

    I know that the EyeTint package works in deferred, but I'm not sure about HDRP.
     
  37. hopeful

    hopeful

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    For those who find UMA too complex, perhaps this inexpensive plugin that was just released would be a help?

    Skinned Mesh Combiner MT
     
  38. EDarkness

    EDarkness

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    Thanks for posting that, but I don't use Unity 2017. I'm still on Unity 5. I can't upgrade farther than this because of how my game is getting ported to other platforms. Once this project is done, I can switch to a newer version of Unity.
     
  39. hopeful

    hopeful

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    Unfortunately, all MCS items have been deprecated and are no longer available for sale in the store.

    While the first impulse might be to think MCS has pulled them, my guess is they have neglected to perform the minor due diligence required to keep up with the latest Unity versions, and through negligence they have allowed Unity to cull them from the store.

    My hope is that they will be restored to the store, even if it is only as textures and blendshapes, and no shaders and controls.
     
  40. magique

    magique

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    In either case I don't think they'll be back. Based on conversations I've had with their spokesperson, they are not interested in supporting these products and won't even respond to communications any more.
     
  41. ceebeee

    ceebeee

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    what a shame
     
  42. hopeful

    hopeful

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    I think they got themselves into "support hell" by not knowing what they were doing and taking too much on.

    They could have, and should have, stuck to simply supplying the models and textures. Practically zero maintenance.
     
  43. EDarkness

    EDarkness

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    Or working on a simpler system to handle morphs. The way they had it setup was way too cumbersome with too many parts that could cause problems. I feel like they were more interested in making some proprietary than something that was simple. Made for more people sending in support tickets and the like.

    I loved their models, though. It's a shame the situation turned out the way it did. They could have easily cornered the market on this if they had handled it right.
     
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2019
  44. hopeful

    hopeful

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    FWIW, I visited the download site for the MCS store, and I found that half the things I bought on their store are no longer available for me. I've got a support ticket now, we'll see if they answer.
     
  45. EDarkness

    EDarkness

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    Oh damn, that's terrible. I guess I should check to see if I can get some of the clothes I purchased from them. There were a couple of packs that I purchased on the store and I'm not sure if I have backups.
     
  46. magique

    magique

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    Suddenly I get an e-mail today from Morph3D.com with the following message:

    We're Morphing
    A new phase of our evolution is arriving March 5.
    And we can't wait to share it with you.
    Stay tuned!


    I wonder if they are relaunching Morph3D products or if it is in regard to something else. Kind of hard to trust them after what they've done though.
     
  47. HeadClot88

    HeadClot88

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    I got the email as well.
     
  48. hopeful

    hopeful

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    Yup, I saw the Morph3D ad as well. But no reply yet from MCS store support.
     
  49. Alex-3D

    Alex-3D

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    Morph3d are scammers. It would be nice to put them a collective lawsuit + damages and lost profits.
     
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  50. PFH

    PFH

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    Any news about morph3d? Or did anyone knew a similar character morph system to mcs. We need a system to create realistic looking persons like it was possible with mcs. Including fat and old people. Others like UMA or FGC are very limited in their possibilites. To bad that mcs stopped their work and did not sell anything anymore. Even not on their website....