[DEPRECATED] PIDI - XFur Studio. Please follow the link inside to XFur Studio 2, our new version

Another update on the FX module, this time using much better textures for the effect as well as some masking to produce much better results



The image above shows snow over a "curly-like" fur, getting it a bit clumpy. In the images below you can see the sliders (and some features currently in DEBUG mode) that control how far should the snow penetrate into the fur. In this first screenshot it is using a slightly strong value of 0.5



Here, a low 0.22



Here the effect is at FULL intensity, for a character that has been under a really heavy snow storm



and finally a more realistic 0.37 value



Of course, you will need to experiment with values and settings depending on the character and kind of fur you are using

The new shaders included in XFur can be more expensive to render than the ones in v1.1 due to all the many additional effects and features, but heavy work is being done to compile them into variants so only the features that you enable are actually processed, so if you are using just a basic setup performance should not be noticeable different

EDIT : In the following days there will be more updates of the new features. The FX module is also getting updated to better manage fur clumps and wetness (useful for water and blood FX) and there will also be some updates on the physics module and other smaller additions

 

Small update : the dynamic snow module is working right now on animated models, taking into account all the animations for the coverage calculations

It has some performance cost if you are using it on more than 20~50 on screen instances, but some heavy optimizations are on their way right now!

On a GeforceGTX 1050, mid-range gaming laptop, I can render up to 60 onscreen instances (6500 tris each) with full 16 samples ( around 6 million triangles, no LOD nor optimization ) at 45~60 FPS inside the Unity Editor. With good optimization, LODS and some other improvements, performance will be considerably better

Though still, it is recommended to not push your polygon count so far into the millions!

​

EDIT : Full disclosure, the laptop in which I tested it was running on Maximum Battery life mode for both the CPU and the graphics card, so this indeed lowers the performance a bit more as well. At maximum performance, I would expect a 25~30% gain

 

That looks fantastic!

After you do some optimizing, can you share ms usage from the profiler?

 

Sure thing!
Though I'll probably make that test on a different unity version since the profiler drops my fps count even on almost empty scenes on Unity 5.4 (where I made all the testing). But sure, as soon as things are more optimized I'll share some more profiler info and performance stats

Thanks for commenting!

 

The profiler still messes up my framerate by around 10% when I enable it, but after some basic optimization here are the numbers for the character in the video (and in the same scene) using the new FX module in 2 settings : High update rate and low update rate.

In high update rate the module updates the snow effect up to 2 times per second in a 16k character if your game is running at 60FPS (this can be of course set up to much higher values but that depends on each particular project ) while the low update rate reduces all this to 1 update per second (like in the video) and does some frame skipping (the heavy calculations are not done every frame but once every 2 frames at most )

With the profiler enabled the performance drops slightly but it is still quite telling :

High update rate, up to 0.23 milliseconds for the FX module with an average of 0.19 (and up to 0.01 for the rest of the XFur System)



Low update rate up to 0.17 milliseconds every 2 frames (my average was 0.08), a little less without the profiler and in a final build



There will be some further optimization, but the FX Module and the Physics module are actually the heaviest parts of the system (the physics system, depending on how many bones you track, may have an even lower performance impact)

These performance values stay relatively similar for all models up to 15k triangles.

Shader related values are still in the works since the shader itself is being optimized as well

I hope this helps to make things a bit clearer, and again, there is more optimization on the way!

Have a nice weekend!

 

Thanks, that's very helpful. Not bad at all, and great to have a lot of options for reducing the hit.

 

Small update :

LOD Module, FX Module, coloring Module, grooming, wind effects, anisotropic lighting and improved look are all ready. Physics Module and advanced shadowing are now the full focus of the development to target a June ~20-24 release

This update is around three times bigger than the update from 1.0 to 1.1, with tons of new features, improved performance and settings.

Also recording and preparing new tutorials, re-writing most of the documentation and preparing all the components for work on Unity 2018

Hope you all will like it once it is available near the end of this month!

 

A small tiny update ( it's Father's day weekend, so things have moved slightly slower ) :

*Movement and physics strength has been exaggerated to make it more evident in the video.

The first, basic iteration of the physics module handling global, translation based physics. Rotation based physics and bone/animation based physics (as well as a more polished global physics result) are coming very soon, in the next videos!

As a small side note, thanks to the way the new physics module works, it will be quite performant regardless of vertex count and for models with up to 128 bones

 

Here is a small video showing the physics being applied to an animated character, and being driven by the bones of said character

This part of the physics module is currently being worked on, but it will be finished very soon!

​

 

A small tiny update :
While I am still doing my best for a release around June 24 (give or take a few days for Unity's approval process) I may take a little longer since I am also rewriting most of the documentation and have a small appointment with the dentist tomorrow.

This is just for full disclosure that there may be a small delay (of a couple of days) on the release. Hopefully no delays will be needed, but worry not since all modules are now almost ready

Have a good day!

 

Small physics test #2 with better inertia algorithms and with a different fur pattern to make the effect more visible

​

The physics module is almost done, so now I am working as well on the new shadowing system and on a small internal database manager to make it much easier to store information that should be shared across multiple instances and reduce the memory footprint/garbage collection calls to make the whole thing more efficient

 

for this "physics" movement, is it possible instead of giving the strand just a directional vector to give it a slide curve from root to tip it whould look more natural i think. less of the motion at the upper shells more on the lower shells.

 

Hi there,

The movement of the strands is being based on a curve though this value has to be hard-coded for performance reasons. While a far more realistic result would be possible if I tried to calculate the physics for every shell separately to produce a better curve, this would also make it way more expensive to use, so the final results will be a more basic "physics" simulation instead as a compromise between realism and performance

Though I keep improving that curve to make it look better anyway !

Thanks for your feedback

 

Wouldn't it be possible to externalise the hard-coded value in a .cginc? Maybe there could be a custom editor that generates this include file so it can be changed at compile-time but not at run-time. Just an idea. I'm in no way an expert in shaders. :-D

 

Hi there,

That value is used already in a cgInc file, though recompiling shaders takes a considerable amount of time so changing it takes a while. However, don't worry since there are a lot of parameters available to modify at runtime which will allow you to produce many, many different results

And I am still trying to come up with an algorithm to better control the curvature of the fur as it moves at runtime, though this first release of the physics module will be in a beta stage, so you can expect improvements in the upcoming months!

Thanks for commenting!

 

A tiny update.

All modules (except the advanced shadows one) are finally done and I am right now just updating all documentation and tutorials as fast as I can and making a few shadowing tests for the release !

As another new feature, though this time more basic (due to shader constraints and to generate minimal overhead) I have added a simple self-collision algorithm to the shader

Without self-collision and a high intensity wind effect :



With self collision and the same wind effect :



Version 1.2 will be online in very few days, it will take just a couple of days for approval after I send it next week, I hope you will like it!

Please be aware that this self-collision method is not perfect and it will not prevent 100% of cases where the fur goes inside the mesh under extreme wind/physics simulations. It will prevent a lot of them and it will make things easier, but you will need to tweak all values on your own to achieve the best results for your characters!

 

​

Video above shows anisotropic lighting in forward mode as well as the new (BETA) weather component that replaces the old XFur_Wind one. This component controls global snow, rain and wind (with the wind affecting realistically the direction of the snow and rain). The fur gets progressively wetter as rain pours in and this affects both its appearance and physics response (if the physics module is enabled). If the rain stops (intensity is set to 0) the fur dries off over time using the parameters defined on the character. Anisotropic lighting is now also enabled/disabled with a single toggle in the main, original material


Documentation is also now halfway ready

 

Hey, curious if we can get any sort of early access to the beta build? Thanks for developing a great asset.

 

Hi there,

Unfortunately there will be no early access since I am iterating over all its modules like crazy today and I cannot take the time to send a preview build to people at this moment, but don't worry, it will be available for everyone as a regular update in the following days (it will go live for everyone probably around this weekend since Unity's approval takes 3-5 days). It is quite different to use from the previous version, so updating the documentation is right now the top priority to make sure everyone can catch up and upgrade without any issues!

I hope this helps, and thank you very much for your kind words towards this asset!

 

Just remembered that I haven't showed you the new realistic shadows working on both forward and deferred

Version 1.2 should be available around this weekend if there are no delays with the approval process on Unity's side, and there will be several small patches adding demos, tutorials and more over the next month!

As another important news :
This update has been a massive amount of work that required to basically scrap the whole shaders and systems from the previous versions and rework everything from the ground up. Tons of new features have been added, some teased already some a little more hidden. Version 1.2 represents the foundation of XFur Studio moving forward.

The basic components are ready to add support for new platforms such as Lightweight SRP this December and a separate, lite version designed for Mobile devices will start development soon for a release around the end of the year- early 2019 as well.

Because of this, the price of XFur Studio has been adjusted to 50 dollars starting with this version, 1.2. This price will stay the same through all the foreseeable future now that all the main, core features required from this asset are in place and ready to make XFur Studio a more mature solution

Hope you will like it!

 

XFur Studio version 1.2 has been sent to the store for approval. If everything goes well, it should be online around the weekend

Here are the update notes :

• New! XFur System component. The streamlined, module based core component of XFur that controls everything, from advanced effects such as rain, blood and snow to complex physics simulations, instance based appearance, randomization etc.
• New! Fur Profiles. Easily save the settings and appearance of your fur inside an external asset and use it as a reference or starting point on any other XFur enabled character.
• New! Monolithic Shaders. All 68 shaders from the previous versions have been compacted onto 6 shaders with full support for Triplanar projections, anisotropic highlights, double-sided rendering, dynamic per-strand shadowing, physics and more.
• New! Weather System. Replacing the old XFur_Wind component, the new XFur_WeatherSystem component simulates wind, rain and snow over all the furry creatures in the scene.
• New! Randomization. Using the new Fur profiles you can predefine parameters for fur randomization on startup, making each character look unique!
• New! New XFur Noise Patterns, for highly detailed and even curly fur
• New! Database-oriented workflow. All the changes, fixes and patches done on a shader and geometry level are stored in an internal database and managed across all instances for maximum performance and minimum impact at runtime.
• New! Physics Module. Simulate physics on the fur of any character, either globally or based on bones. Characters of up to 128 bones are supported, with no setup nor preparation needed.
• New! Effects Module. Simulate snow, rain, blood etc. over the surface of your character's fur. No setup required and models of up to 64536 vertices are supported. Please be aware that the higher the vertex count, the heavier the performance impact the module will have.
• New! LOD Module 2.0. Control automatically and easily how the fur looks as it gets away from the camera. With a very simple switch between Quality and Performance you can get the maximum performance even on character-heavy scenes.
• New! Advanced real-fur shadows. The new fur generation method included in version 1.2 has full support for shadows on forward and deferred showing all the detail of every strand of fur. While heavily optimized, it is not recommended to use full shadows on more than a couple of characters nor in high poly models.
• New! Simplified workflow. Anisotropic highlights, triplanar fixes, shadow generation, fur handling and more are mostly automated to simplify your work as much as possible.
• New! Stiffness painting. Stiffness can now be painted over the mesh to precisely control the stiffness of the fur, affecting its response to physics, wind, etc.
• New! XFur Painter 2.0! New UI, new features, multi-material support and many other new features.
• New! Full multi-material support. Multiple fur materials can be assigned, edited and used with XFur in all Unity versions. In Unity 2018.1 and above each material can be modified on a per-instance basis.
• New! Simplified Code interfaces. Simple and easy to understand methods, callbacks and interfaces to allow you to access and modify the settings of your character's fur through code at runtime.
• Improved - Better wind movement algorithms for a more natural, predictable and customizable result.
• Improved - Fur detail and coloration has been highly improved, moving from a single grayscale pattern to 4 channels of information for shape, density and color variations over the fur.
• Improved - Rim lighting has been re-coded to allow for better results
• Improved - Fur thickness control has been improved to allow for better precision on the strands.
• Improved - Fur shadowing has been improved to avoid over-darkening of the fur
• Improved - Triplanar projection algorithm has been improved, removing previously existing seams. Triplanar projections are now more expensive to calculate, however. It is heavily recommended to generate a cube-based projection as a secondary UV for your models.
• Improved - Included map-packer has been improved to support the new data types and the new fur maps.
• Improved - Anisotropic highlights will automatically disable on deferred to ensure correct rendering on all rendering paths, just as light probes support (light probes force render in forward mode in Unity 5).
• Improved - Automatic material generation. You no longer need to create all variants (4,8,16,24 samples) on your own. The system generates all needed variants itself and assigns them as needed without requiring any additional work.
• Removed - The "No shadows" and "Simple" variants of the shaders have been removed and replaced with new optimization methods.
• Removed - Support for Unity 5.2 has been dropped in this release since many of the new features cannot be implemented in Unity versions older than 5.4.

Important notes :

• Please read the documentation. The system is now considerably different from previous versions. While ease of use is still the top priority and the system is fairly easy to understand, it is not recommended to use it or test it without knowing at least the basics as described in the manual.
• All fur maps from previous versions are compatible with this version. Fur noise maps are different, so the material will require some tweaking to match the look of previous versions.
• Auto-upgrade tools are provided to easily switch to the new shaders with minimal tweaking.
• XFur Painter 1.0 will not work with the new shaders, nor XFur Painter 2.0 work with the older shaders. Please make sure you are using the right version before painting your models.
• This is the last version that will include the now Legacy 68 shaders from version 1.1 as well as XFur Painter 1.0 and the legacy demos. Starting with version 1.3, only the current systems, demos and shaders will be provided. Please make sure to upgrade your materials and to backup the old ones if needed.
• Some names in the shaders and in the components have changed to avoid conflicts with non-XFur materials. The names will stay the same going forward. To modify fur properties at runtime please avoid modifying the variables directly and use the provided interfaces and methods instead, to ensure compatibility with future versions.
• The effects module is incompatible with hardware based anti-aliasing as it produces artifacts in the internal data. Please use a PostFX based anti-aliasing solution instead.

Remember, the new price of this asset will be 50 dollars starting with version 1.2.

The asset will be ready for approval soon, between this weekend and very early next week (depending on Unity's approval times). I hope you will like it!

 

If the code base is that different you should number it 2.0 to correctly prime the break in compatibility (even with old code base inside), it will make it easier to track what's what.

 

Hi there,

The code is not THAT different, don't worry!

Some parts of it are, but mostly there are LOTS of new code introduced. The reason I didn't change the major version number is because the asset is still quite new and this version change is more alike the changes in Unity itself from versions 5.2 to 5.6 for example (with several methods going obsolete/changing names). Both versions are compatible (and can be used mostly the same) with the main differences being felt by those using it through code instead of with the provided interfaces

XFur Painter did change a lot more, so that one is now labelled as 2.0. And once XFur Studio switches to support SRPs it will also change to version 2.0 since there will be plenty of changes

Thanks for commenting!

 

Can't wait!

So Unity's post-processing stack will work, right?

 

Yes, Unity's post process stack is the intended way to go and what I have been using while developing this version

MSAA produces noticeable seams on the snow effects (they show like small, very very thin lines across the edges of each quad) so if you are going to use the FX module it is heavily recommended to use a post process based antialiasing (Temporal, FXAA, etc).

Glad to hear you are excited for the update, I hope it will be very useful for your project!

While we all wait for it to be approved, I will start releasing small feature videos so you can all start to get familiarized with the new workflow, starting later today

 

XFur Painter 2.0 now has a highly improved UI design, works faster, easily supports multiple materials (in preview mode) and doesn't require any additional setup. Just add your model to the Painter scene, make sure it has the XFur_System component assigned and hit play.

 

All of these videos start in the painter. Silly question maybe, how do I launch that painter mode?

 

Hi there!
There is a scene included in the package called Xfur Painter. Open that scene, drag your model and set it up as explained in the manual (with a collider), and then just hit play

I hope this helps

 

New in version 1.2 :

Multiple fur materials :



And improved material lighting / coloring / general appearance :



I am recording and editing the per-feature videos for tomorrow, so expect some more news and info in the following days while the package is approved !

 

It would be nice to see some different models where you apply and show case XFur's effects if that's possible. The buffalo is nice and all but it's also a bit hard to see every little effect change you demonstrated in your past videos. At least for me that is

I'd also like to say that although I haven't had the time yet to play with your XFur asset I do appreciate your diligent work and numerous update reports here that even feature some short video clips here and there.

 

Thanks for your kind words, I really appreciate it

I've been very very busy with the actual coding of XFur for a little more than a month now so I didn't have enough time to prepare more models before but sure, I'll see what to do now that it's ready to showcase it better!

I'm actually thinking of making a small "mascot" so to speak that can be provided with the package as a demo for animated models, designed to show the features well. But in any case, yes, I will try to use more models in the next videos

Thanks for commenting, I hope you will enjoy XFur once you get more time to use it!

 

This is the fur in another model, without any grooming nor masks nor length adjustments, just to show the "Default" look of it with basic color and a diffuse texture applied :



I really like the "teddy bear" look of it

There will be more videos later !

 

That helped greatly, thank you!

 

No problem, I am glad to help!

 

A little look at how easy is to set up a model for XFur Painter 2.0 !

Please be aware that, this being the first version with all these new features, there will be constant improvements, fixes and polishing during the next few days / couple of weeks as I get your feedback, questions and go through the system again to keep improving the whole experience now that XFur has a much more definitive and matured workflow.

I hope that you will like this huge update!

 

XFur Studio 1.2 is now available at its new 50 dollars price!

Please notice that support for Unity 5.2 has been dropped due to changes in the internal code and that it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you make a backup of your project before using XFur ( though it is highly recommended to do so before installing any plugin/asset from the store in any case)
​

Here are the update notes :

• New! XFur System component. The streamlined, module based core component of XFur that controls everything, from advanced effects such as rain, blood and snow to complex physics simulations, instance based appearance, randomization etc.
• New! Fur Profiles. Easily save the settings and appearance of your fur inside an external asset and use it as a reference or starting point on any other XFur enabled character.
• New! Monolithic Shaders. All 68 shaders from the previous versions have been compacted onto 6 shaders with full support for Triplanar projections, anisotropic highlights, double-sided rendering, dynamic per-strand shadowing, physics and more.
• New! Weather System. Replacing the old XFur_Wind component, the new XFur_WeatherSystem component simulates wind, rain and snow over all the furry creatures in the scene.
• New! Randomization. Using the new Fur profiles you can predefine parameters for fur randomization on startup, making each character look unique!
• New! New XFur Noise Patterns, for highly detailed and even curly fur
• New! Database-oriented workflow. All the changes, fixes and patches done on a shader and geometry level are stored in an internal database and managed across all instances for maximum performance and minimum impact at runtime.
• New! Physics Module. Simulate physics on the fur of any character, either globally or based on bones. Characters of up to 128 bones are supported, with no setup nor preparation needed.
• New! Effects Module. Simulate snow, rain, blood etc. over the surface of your character's fur. No setup required and models of up to 64536 vertices are supported. Please be aware that the higher the vertex count, the heavier the performance impact the module will have.
• New! LOD Module 2.0. Control automatically and easily how the fur looks as it gets away from the camera. With a very simple switch between Quality and Performance you can get the maximum performance even on character-heavy scenes.
• New! Advanced real-fur shadows. The new fur generation method included in version 1.2 has full support for shadows on forward and deferred showing all the detail of every strand of fur. While heavily optimized, it is not recommended to use full shadows on more than a couple of characters nor in high poly models.
• New! Simplified workflow. Anisotropic highlights, triplanar fixes, shadow generation, fur handling and more are mostly automated to simplify your work as much as possible.
• New! Stiffness painting. Stiffness can now be painted over the mesh to precisely control the stiffness of the fur, affecting its response to physics, wind, etc.
• New! XFur Painter 2.0! New UI, new features, multi-material support and many other new features.
• New! Full multi-material support. Multiple fur materials can be assigned, edited and used with XFur in all Unity versions. In Unity 2018.1 and above each material can be modified on a per-instance basis.
• New! Simplified Code interfaces. Simple and easy to understand methods, callbacks and interfaces to allow you to access and modify the settings of your character's fur through code at runtime.
• Improved - Better wind movement algorithms for a more natural, predictable and customizable result.
• Improved - Fur detail and coloration has been highly improved, moving from a single grayscale pattern to 4 channels of information for shape, density and color variations over the fur.
• Improved - Rim lighting has been re-coded to allow for better results
• Improved - Fur thickness control has been improved to allow for better precision on the strands.
• Improved - Fur shadowing has been improved to avoid over-darkening of the fur
• Improved - Triplanar projection algorithm has been improved, removing previously existing seams. Triplanar projections are now more expensive to calculate, however. It is heavily recommended to generate a cube-based projection as a secondary UV for your models.
• Improved - Included map-packer has been improved to support the new data types and the new fur maps.
• Improved - Anisotropic highlights will automatically disable on deferred to ensure correct rendering on all rendering paths, just as light probes support (light probes force render in forward mode in Unity 5).
• Improved - Automatic material generation. You no longer need to create all variants (4,8,16,24 samples) on your own. The system generates all needed variants itself and assigns them as needed without requiring any additional work.
• Removed - The "No shadows" and "Simple" variants of the shaders have been removed and replaced with new optimization methods.
• Removed - Support for Unity 5.2 has been dropped in this release since many of the new features cannot be implemented in Unity versions older than 5.4.

Important notes :

• Please read the documentation. The system is now considerably different from previous versions. While ease of use is still the top priority and the system is fairly easy to understand, it is not recommended to use it or test it without knowing at least the basics as described in the manual.
• All fur maps from previous versions are compatible with this version. Fur noise maps are different, so the material will require some tweaking to match the look of previous versions.
• Auto-upgrade tools are provided to easily switch to the new shaders with minimal tweaking.
• XFur Painter 1.0 will not work with the new shaders, nor XFur Painter 2.0 work with the older shaders. Please make sure you are using the right version before painting your models.
• This is the last version that will include the now Legacy 68 shaders from version 1.1 as well as XFur Painter 1.0 and the legacy demos. Starting with version 1.3, only the current systems, demos and shaders will be provided. Please make sure to upgrade your materials and to backup the old ones if needed.
• Some names in the shaders and in the components have changed to avoid conflicts with non-XFur materials. The names will stay the same going forward. To modify fur properties at runtime please avoid modifying the variables directly and use the provided interfaces and methods instead, to ensure compatibility with future versions.
• The effects module is incompatible with hardware based anti-aliasing as it produces artifacts in the internal data (that shows as white lines on the fur's surface). Please use a PostFX based anti-aliasing solution instead.

Remember that many of the modules are on their first iteration. New features, performance improvements and smaller patches/fixes will be provided in the upcoming weeks to make them work even faster and better

I hope you will like it !

 

Hey, that's super neat!!! Where were you for Ghost of a Tale?!!!

All joking aside I just discovered this thread and I can't tell you how glad I am to see a passionate developer creating what looks to be a terrific fur solution for Unity.

Oh let me ask you a basic question off the top of my head: I understand that it is possible to groom the fur to make it follow the direction of an arm (for example). But if the arm bends during an animation, will the fur keep its direction relative to the forearm? Meaning that the "flow" of the fur would follow the direction of the upper arm and then smoothly bend to follow the direction of the forearm? I hope that's clear.

In other words I need the fur to "hug" the limbs of characters (they're mostly rodents with slick fur, not bears with heavy hanging fur) without penetrating the underlying mesh.

Anyway, your communication is top notch, keep up the great work!

 

Hi there!

Thanks! And welcome to the thread!

For ghost of a tale, I wasn't even in the store by then unfortunately

But it's an amazing game and I'm glad you could find a fur solution for it as well!

Right now, the fur grooming features are in a beta stage since the fur does not bend 100% accurately with the model's movement (like in the case you describe) due to Unity lacking some painfully necessary information on the vertex pass (and due to grooming being a quite recent addition, having appeared first on v 1.1!). I am working on a fix for this that could be ready between this week and next however, using some of the information that the new XFur version packs on the mesh. Right now it works with object-space but I am trying to implement bone-space grooming

I hope this helps!

 

Got 1.2, very excited to dig into it!

But I'm having trouble assigning my mesh to the X Fur Painter component on the main camera in the Painter scene -- it won't accept that mesh. It's a skinned mesh renderer, and before I had to use a non-skinned mesh, but I thought the 1.2 manual said I could use skinned mesh now?

 

Hi there,

I am glad to hear you are testing the new version!
I seriously recommend you to read the new manual (named PIDI_XFur_Manual_12) to check how painting works in the new version, since there were some changes. Please be aware that grooming skinned meshes is in beta and subject to changes in this version, so I recommend you to don't do any definitive grooming yet.

The new workflow is basically to add an XFur Material (using one of the new shaders) to your model in the new XFur painter 2.0 scene (which is in the Standard Pipeline folder), then add the XFur System component next to its renderer (skinned mesh renderer in this case) and then, after setting up the fur to look more or less the way you want it, hit play and start painting

Everything is a bit clearer in the manual since there are several pictures and step by step instructions on how to set up everything for XFur Painter 2.0

I hope this helps!

 

I must have mis-read the manual -- it says "you can add a full rigged model to the scene" -- but if that's still in beta for grooming, I'll use a plain mesh render instead.

So I've got that set up in the Painter scene, but I can't paint fur, can't erase fur. I can zoom in/out, but that's all, the rotation inputs don't work either. No errors. Doesn't work on Lucy or on my model. I just need to play the scene, then left-click to paint and right-click to erase, right? I'm on Mac High Sierra with Unity 2018.1.

EDIT: What material should be assigned to the XFur_Painter component on the camera? And what shader should it have?

thx
Dave

 

Hi again,
Are you using the new painter scene, or the old one? In the new painter scene, there is no slot to add any mesh nor any material nor anything else. You just drop your model in the scene, hit play and you are ready to go. But you MUST use the XFur System component in your model for it to work correctly. If you see a mesh slot and a material slot in the painter component, then you are opening the wrong scene.

The old XFur Painter only works with models using the old shaders, the new XFur Painter only works with models using the new shaders.

You can add a fully rigged model to the scene but grooming is still in beta for any animated character regardless of how you paint it (since the grooming does not respond well yet to bone movement, it is something I am trying to solve at the moment). It will take a little while but it shouldn't be too long

The XFur System component is now a requirement for all models that will be painted, since it is the component that controls the automation of the whole process. If you are in the right Painter scene, there should be a Lucy model ready to use, ready to paint and already working with the new XFur System component already assigned to it

 

Just to be more clear, this is how the Painter 2 component looks :



With no slots for materials, meshes, or anything else. If you see this component in an object called XFur_Painter insted of Main Camera, you are on the right scene

 

To everyone, please ask all your questions and post here all the doubts you have about the new system as well as your feedback. I fully expect you to have some trouble adjusting since XFur 1.2 is quite a different beast from 1.1, but that's precisely the reason I wanted to make the big change right at the beginning so we can all adjust together to this new workflow as early as possible, rather than when people has already made huge progress in their projects.

This way, I can make bigger updates or change radically the way internal components work without breaking any of your work. That has been my main concern while developing this version, to make sure I dont break anything on neither my end nor your end.

The only reason behind this huge change was to meet your expectations and be able to offer you the features you wanted and needed from XFur Studio, since the old system was already growing at an unsustainable pace (already to 68 shaders ) and adding new features was getting incredibly troublesome, so a full rewrite was required to meet all expectations

This meant unfortunately that a few features (like grooming especially) are in a beta stage as I adjust them. They are still fully backwards compatible (wind works the same, grooming works the same, masks behave the same) but they will suffer some internal changes during the following weeks to make them more stable and feature rich. Besides the grooming, you shouldn't notice any external changes in the behavior

And with the grooming, I will make an upgrading tool so you dont have to redo any grooming maps, Instead, you will have the information you have already painted behave more nicely and accurately

I hope this makes things a bit more clear, and please let me know your feedback and suggestions about what you would like to see improved in the new behavior. It is now easier to make changes and adjustments, so I will hear all your suggestions and implement and improve everything that needs to be polished up so XFur Studio can be better suited for all of you!

Thank you very much for supporting my work, I hope you will enjoy XFur Studio 1.2 and that with your feedback it can be improved even more in the near future

 

Sounds great! I'll wait for the new version (with the more robust joint-grooming) before starting my tests then...

 

Ohhhh, yeah, looks like I was using the old one -- maybe label that more clearly as the v1 painter folder/scene?

Okay, now I'm in the correct Painter scene. Lucy works fine, but I still can't paint/erase on my model, which is a plain mesh renderer that I've set up per the instructions in the manual (Standard xfur shader, xfur system with database assigned...). Paint/Erase do nothing, though I can see the brush on the fur. Also, Left Shift-mouse wheel doesn't adjust the Brush Size (but Ctrl-Mouse Wheel does adjust the Brush Strength). I can't drag either of those sliders manually either. No errors.



This model does have four materials on it, but I've selected the correct material in the XFur System component. Oddly, the "Fur Samples" slot is empty, nothing displayed in it, no pulldown option.

EDIT: Also, I discovered that I can only have one object with XFur System in the Painter scene -- if I have others that are disabled, the enabled one won't work. That's fine, just confused me for a bit. Maybe mention it in the manual.

 

Hi there,

I will update the manual at once to make all this setup clearer, dont worry

About the UI not responding, I am afraid I will need some time to look into it since it is using exactly the same functions as the old XFur Painter (the UI, I mean) just with different icons so there is no real reason for it to not work unless there is some Unity bug behind the scenes. I will check it today on several monitors as well to see if it has something to do with screen resolution.

About the disabled object, I didn't mention that in the manual since on my end I could work with several objects disabled and only one enabled, so that bug never popped out on my end. Thanks for reporting it!

I suspect there must be some other differences behind the scenes on Unity 2018.1 tha the ones I found. I will check at once and try to find the root of these issues

 

Hi,
and congratulations for the new version's release!
I've just began using the old version a week ago, so I'm still trying to wrap my head around the content and now this update comes along with loads of improvements and new features. Amazing!

Still, I have a suggestion, if I may.
Could you please, in future releases, fix the compiler warnings?



I don't mind those which show up just once during the import (like LightingData), but it gets a bit annoying in case of script warnings, because those show up every time Unity compiles and get mixed with warnings & errors resulting from my own development.
In the end, I either have to disable all warnings with #pragma or fix the issues myself, only to have those changes overwritten and warnings put back the next time the asset receives an update.

Obviously, this isn't something which needs an ASAP fix, but would make your asset look more professional in the future and won't spoil the moment of importing a brand new asset by pushing users to go and fix preventable issues.


Except for that, I can't wait to try out the new features! Well done!

 

Thanks for your kind words and for your suggestions
Compiler warnings are indeed almost fixed for the first patch to this version, which should be out soon enough (around next week probably) with several fixes and improvements across the board for all features (and adding a few new things for the FX module).

Apologies for the inconvenience with the warnings, they have been a bit difficult to track since they don't display the same way in different Unity versions, but they will be solved in the next patch dont worry

Again,l thanks for your kind words and your feedback, as well as for supporting my work. I hope XFur Studio will be very useful for your project!

 

First patch has been sent to the store with fixes for most of the in-editor warnings (tested in Unity 5.4, 5.6 and 2018.1), new algorithm for fur grooming in preview mode (commented out) in preparation for a public release around mid-July, fixes to XFur Painter when working with multiple materials in a non-instance based workflow and fixed a serious bug when switching non-xfur materials on the second material slot directly on XFur System that lead to a crash under certain circumstances.

All the legacy demos and source code as well as XFur Painter 1.0 have been removed from the package to avoid confusion between versions.

It will be available as soon as it is approved by the store (1-3 days usually)