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

UMA can use blendshapes now. And it has a "bone builder" that allows you to integrate models in the editor with character controllers and so forth, like you would with any other model.

But I agree, if your game calls for doing all of your character design in the editor / 3D modeling program, there's no need for you to use UMA. UMA's mainly for runtime generation / customization / randomization.

 

Yes - it's actually SecretAnorak's: https://discord.gg/NdcNAM

 

DOS is working on an Avatar called "UniUMA" - it's a single avatar that can be male or female, or various races. He's got some awesome new textures for it also. And it can adjust the existing content to fit the new skeleton. This is all work-in-progress, but here's some pics of UniUMA in action (posted with permission).

UniUMA (next to a DAZ character). UniUMA is the one in front.



UniUma all buffed up (orc?):



UniUMA morphed to a wolf-head:



UniUMA closeup detail :

 

The earliest version we support in the latest UMA is 2017.4 now.

 

I don't recall hearing anything about DOS before. Have I been missing out?

I definitely like the single model idea, provided it really works for both sexes. I would really prefer to skin all of my slots just the once ... instead of twice (one male, one female).

 

DOS - is David, sorry - he's one of the main developers. He's working on the last few bits of UniUMA, should be available soon. I believe the Skin is going to get some changes also, to make it lighter and easier to colorize.

 

Well.... Morph3D has just deleted their twitter account.



and they set their DNS redirects from morph3d.com to MakeTafi.com... and all that stuff about MCS going Open Source is now gone. One might assume it was a hoax created by their disgruntled ex-employees (fired maybe?).

 

Not surprised at all. No one should be, honestly. They never really kept release dates and the software was buggy. The idea was sound, though. I just wish a better company was working on it. Looks like we won't get that open source Morph3D, either. I was hoping for that as I might be able to look at it and fix some problems. Looks like they're washing their hands of the whole thing now. It's sad.

 

Thanks Jaimi, that's awesome news. I presume that means that clothing will fit males and females, and there will be bones/blendshapes to make all these body changes?

So that's the end of Morph3D. Closed everything down. All the original staff are gone, and most of their Unity accounts haven't been touched for years.

 

Welp, there goes any chance of downloading any previously purchased assets from the MCS store, as it is now gone, and without a single word of warning to their customers.

 

Is there anything that can replace MCS, then? So that we have something to work with as a replacement?

 

Yeah - Those will be boneposes I believe - so you can use DNA to morph between male/female, etc.
The new Dynamic DNA stuff is amazing - you can morph between colors, normal maps, bone poses, blendshapes, etc - in addition to bone transforms, and you can combine all of them into a single DNA.

This one (credit to David - he's the mastermind of the Dynamic DNA Converters) morphs colors, normal maps, bone poses, and blendshapes on the current UMA (with an old man face I added to it):

 

There's the stuff that @Jaimi is showing, but I don't know a whole lot about it.

I'm more than a little screwed. I'm stuck on Unity 5 and I have no solution or way to replace it. I'm soooooo frustrated right now. I was at least hoping for the open source stuff so that I could try to salvage what I could and at least deal with the skin issue. Now that's gone and so I'm stuck with nothing. Pretty pissed, honestly.

 

Hmm ... looks like some of the Morph3D stuff is migrating over to Tafi now.

We have 3 old headshots from the Morph3D site, plus some verbiage, and the Morph3D twitter is now under Tafi's name. They also have a new Instagram page.

Maybe it is still alive ...?

 

According to this site:

https://www.trademarkia.com/company-daz-productions-inc-325958-page-1-2

Morph3d and Tafi are both simply trademarks of DAZ itself. If so, it's just a rebranding.

 

That does look pretty good. Does it support mouth morphs for Lipsync?

And yeah the old morph3d site is now redone as Tafi. I guess they are just running behind their scheduled plan. will have to watch and see.

 

Yes - It has a component called "Expression Player" that has various animations for lipsync or manually making expressions. It's really a set of animations that are layered on top of an existing animation. It works with both Lipsync Pro and Salsa.

 

Sorry to hear about your troubles. I'm not sure what Jaimi is showcasing. Is there a link to a unity asset store?

 

The short answer is: it's UMA. (David or DOS is a contributor to the open source UMA project.)

 

What he's working on won't work for me since it requires a newer version of Unity. I'm pretty much stuck with Unity 5 right now and that version of UMA won't work for me. My best hope is to write something myself (considering how much time I've been waiting, I probably could have at this point), or hope that Morph3D gets an open source release so I can do some adjustments to the code. *sigh* I threw my lot in with the wrong horse and here I am....

 

So I was able to locate some old backups I'd made and think I have recovered all of my missing MCS store purchases except for four models: Steampunk Aviator, Vintage Aviator, Army Trooper, and Army Soldier ... which were all on the same MCS invoice.

I know Unity has deprecated copies of these models in their store, and I have a valid license to use them (the MCS invoice). I guess I can try to approach the UAS with my MCS invoice and see if they will jiggle loose copies of the models, but I don't think that will work.

Any thoughts?

 

I doubt they'll do it, but it can't hurt to send them an e-mail and explain the situation. Not sure how that counts against the Morph3D account.

 

anything you have previously bought is still downloadable, even if Depreciated. you shouldn't have to do anything special to access them. Just go to your "My assets page" and click "Open in unity" to download and install them.



(it's interesting MCS stuff is now named Tafi…. Maybe they intend to reopen their store at some point.)

Edit: oh interesting, their creator page has some info...

"We will not be offering assets through the Unity Asset Store at this time, but will be updating with a link to those assets for past users in the coming weeks. Please check back for an updated link."

 

Awesome! Maybe we won't be left entirely out in the cold after all.

As for the deprecated assets ... I bought the missing items on the MCS store, not the Unity store. So while I do have a license to use them, I don't have a record of buying the assets with the Unity store.

But if I can get access to the models from Tafi or whoever in a couple of months, I'm fine.

 

Uuuh, if Tafi is a rebranding of mcs, they can't really be trusted, considering how they handled things...

 

Definitely. They really screwed up the Morph3D stuff and left us with a bunch of promises that never went anywhere. They missed deadlines all of the time and even at the end they left Morph3D in a crappy state. Unless they do something amazing, they're not worth investing in at all.

 

I don't care how amazing it is. They can't be trusted.

 

Hi, I've seen this video about this asset:

In the 24:05 min the model transform from adult to child. I am trying to do the same but there is conflict with the bones, look at this post:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/blendshape-animation-weird-error.659101/

I am using the Genesis model of DAZ. How is it possible that the model of this asset can transform from adult to child without deforming the mesh? What system did they use for manage the bones and blendshapes?

 

Hi everyone, sorry we haven’t been able to talk about our current work or stay active on the forums. As a company, we’ve been working on a new product. Since we’re moving on with a new product and brand, we wanted to publish the existing MCS asset as an open source product which you can now grab at: https://github.com/mcs-sdk/mcs

All future technical issues and problems can be tracked at the github page above.

This will allow anyone that wants to help contribute, fork, assist, or even to help take over MCS as a product can do so. There are a few release files that will help get you started if you don’t want to compile the code yourself, but there is a solution file and some basic instructions if you want to try building and modifying it yourself.

If you’ve purchased existing assets through the previous store (non-unity), you can get those assets at https://mcsdownload.com. If you never purchased the assets, you’ll be able to buy these as a bundled product on the Daz 3D store at www.daz3d.com/shop/mcs-mega-bundle. If you bought assets through the Unity store, but are unable to download them for any reason, please contact customer support at https://www.daz3d.com/help/help-contact-us and an arrangement can be made for you.

If you have technical questions, those will be best served on the github issues page where they are easier for me to track, but if you have other non-technical questions you can ask them directly to me if you’d like.

 

@jjanzer_morph Thanks for the update. As much as I don't like the way MCS has been handled in the past, I still own a bunch of content that I could actually use right now if there was just one bug fix. There is the issue where certain Morphs just cause the character to be all stretched out when played on console system. If I had a clue where to look for this in the code then I'd love to get that fixed. Is there any way you could help point me in the right direction to look for this in the source code?

 

Introduce a bug on the github would be a start I guess?

 

Yeah I can point you in the right direction, open an issue on github, provide a screenshot if appropriate and I'll see if I can help. I plan to be fairly active for the next week to help anyone out, so now is a good time to raise the issue.

 

Everyone should be sure to read this part of the respository:


for people like @hopeful who were looking for access to their assets.

 

Are the Artist Tools going to be open sourced as well?

 

Tip of the hat to ya, @CeeBee for thinking of me.

I saw this a little while ago and have been busy making new downloads direct to a new archival hard drive I'm using. I'm still downloading.

One error I've discovered so far (please note, @jjanzer_morph) is that the Male version of the Mercurial suit is actually the female one. It takes me longer to import these into Unity than it does to download, so I don't know how many errors like this I'll be able to catch.

 

We don't have current plans due to some of the code and technology inside artist tools. It is something we've discussed and it isn't off the table, but it might be something where part of it is open sourced and some parts are left as compiled.

 

Seems like in addition to the Male Mercurial there are a few more sets / individuals that may be missing. Some of these are also missing in the MCS Mega Bundle sold through DAZ.

I don't see Myrna, Prison Outfit, Minotaur, Lizard Man, Rainstorm, the Male: Galactic Warriors (which would include a copy of Male Mercurial), the toon characters appear to be missing, and the Greek arena and other scene assets aren't there.

UPDATE: Also Female Angel Armor, Male Cyclops, Male Cyberpunk, Male Hazmat Suit are missing.

 

Thanks, sorry for the issue we batch processed many of these assets so there is likely a problem here and there. It's probably easiest to PM me for specific assets and I'll update them asap.

 

Okay.

 

FWIW, if anyone is interested, the whole set of MCS assets (well, some are missing at the moment) are available from DAZ for only $70 at the moment. It appears they are not under DAZ license, but have the "interactive license."

 

Just as a sanity check, here are some of the other models I'm not finding in either the MCS store downloads or the MCS Mega Bundle, so I think they've been overlooked:

Gym Uniform, Wild Spirit, Mall Girl, Male: Stone Outfit, Wrap Outfit, Monika Dress, Kimi Style Outfit, Tank-top Outfit, Male: Fairytale Prince, Baseball Jacket, Male: Nomad Outfit, Early Spring Outfit, Cathy, Male: Egyptian.

There are possibly more missing, but I've got to attend to RL for a while.

 

Some assets aren't included in the mcs mega bundle. If you bought an asset in the past but can't locate it, as in it's not in the bundle, we can help find a copy if yours is lost and you can't download it anymore. Assets that aren't in the bundle haven't been converted to the 1.7 code. I'll likely upload the conversion script I made for 1.6->1.7 for the content packs, so that should help convert any packages that you already may have had.

 

Good to hear that everything is going to be open source. The first thing I'd like to see fixed, or to see how I can fix it is to have skin not get reverted whenever I press play in the editor. I'll look at the github stuff and move over my code to this new MCS stuff. This is something I REALLY need to get fixed.

 

Could have done with the email about the GitHub release not exposing the email address of all 987 recipients. Never heard of privacy concerns?

 

Hmm. I haven't received an email yet, nor is it in junk.

 

I see the Reptilian (I erroneously called it Lizard Man above) and Minotaur are part of the MCS bundle on DAZ.

I hope this means I can get a refreshed download of the Minotaur, because the last one I had on my computer has corrupted.

 

Why can't download MCS Male.unitypackage?
Where to download?

 

if you read recent discussion in the thread you'd see it was recently open sourced, you can get the data from the Releases tab of the GitHub. https://github.com/mcs-sdk/mcs

 

But there is no Fbx file.

 

Go to Releases... are Unitypackages there.