Skinn Pro & Free - Skin & Blendshape Projection + Much More

Hello,

My custom baking does not support negative shapes yet I just figured out I will support negative blend-shape baking in a update. Un-clamped blend-shapes will work fine with assets created with the VM.

Unity's new negative blend-shapes is the reverse of the same shape. In 2019.1 the Skinned Mesh Renderer Inspector is clamping the values to 0-100. If set the blend-shapes in code a negative value will work. You can disable custom Inspectors by clicking the icon to the right of the Inspector Lock and enter Debug Mode to test out shapes in the editor.

I removed the tools to create new shapes for negative shapes in 0.6 since clamping blend-shapes was Deprecated in 2019.1. Let me know if you still need to create new shapes for negative shapes, and I will add that as a new Shape Command.

Thanks

 

Hello,

This tool looks very useful! I was wondering exactly how it worked.

For my needs, I have custom blendshapes to control the shape of my custom characters. My clothing is already pre-rigged, they are already skinned mesh renderers. Will Skinn create new weights and rigging for the entire clothing and skinned mesh? Will I be able to edit the skinning afterwards as well?

I'm merely looking to take my pre-rigged clothing and adjust it to the new blendshapes. But maybe this tool does even more than that? Will it rig clothing for me that I have not already skinned? Will it take my current skinning and just weight it to the blendshape?

 

The answer to most of this is a simple yes. I suggest just trying it. SKINN seems a bit cryptic, but it's essentially
1. load 1st mesh (copy from)
2. load 2nd mesh (copy to)
3. include/exclude specific bones and blendshapes
4. hit the button
(I'm not the author, so I may need to be corrected.)

Will Skinn create new weights and rigging for the entire clothing and skinned mesh?
– it will copy the rigging. You have a few settings to adjust, but easiest to think of it as just copying.

Will I be able to edit the skinning afterwards as well?
– you can do it again.

I'm merely looking to take my pre-rigged clothing and adjust it to the new blendshapes. But maybe this tool does even more than that?
– err, maybe…? It bridges a gap in Unity's skinned mesh workflow. It's more of a "needed utility" than an "art tool".

Will it rig clothing for me that I have not already skinned?
– yes, it will skin the clothing to an existing rig. One of my uses is for dynamic cloth – for instance, a long dress can be imported as obj, aligned with the figure and use SKINN to add the spine hip and thigh bones to the dress while leaving the lower legs "boneless" for dynamic cloth. I also made some clothing that I didn't like how the skinned mesh "crumpled" under the armpits when the figure (rigged in T-pose) stood in a normal straight pose. I used SKINN to re-rig the outfit without the shoulder bones. I think probably the best possible clothing in Unity is a clever combination of bones and dynamic cloth (SKINN just helps with the bones, there are other tools to help paint dynamic cloth)

Will it take my current skinning and just weight it to the blendshape?
– yes, if I understand the question. For instance you have a figure with body blendshapes and some skinned clothing that does not have the matching blendshapes. You can copy the blendshapes over to the clothes. It's an automated process that follows the vertices. You have some accuracy/falloff settings, but again it's more of a utility than an art tool.

It would be possible to export a fully morphed clothing mesh (created automatically with SKINN), do a bit of fixing and sculpting to the mesh, then use SKINN to add the edited mesh as a new blendshape. I think that's what you mean by SKINN can "do more". Since it bridges this gap in the workflow, you can take the meshes through several iterations (combined with mesh sculpting tools) without leaving Unity.​

 

Hi,

i tried your asset and it works great on editor.
I need to have blendshapes transfered from body to cloth on mesh that works on Android.

With the pro version, can i bake those blendshapes, save the mesh Editor, and use generated mesh in the final build on Oculus Go that don't support compute shaders ?
Thanks

 

Hi, Thanks for checking out the Vertex Mapper.

You can save and reuse mesh assets with the free and the pro versions.

Free
There is a Skinned Mesh Renderer context command for save meshes included in the Free version.

To save and use a mesh with the free version.

1. Select a SMR you want to save, and context(right)-click it's header selecting 'Skinn: Save Mesh'.
2. With the mesh saved assign the new mesh to the SMR you just used and create a new prefab.

Paid
In the paid version you can save meshes with prefabs, or export single skinned meshes as fbx.

To save and use a mesh with the paid version.

1. Create a new prefab and you will be prompted to save any unsaved meshes.

To export a mesh with the paid version.

1. Select a SMR you want to export, and context(right)-click it's header selecting 'Skin Edit:/Export'

Use the fbx exporter with caution when exporting large meshes with lots of blend-shapes.
The fbx supports normals, tangents, vertex colors, bone-weight, bones, single frame blend-shapes without lighting.
The fbx does not support animation or multiple meshes.

Please let me know if you have any trouble using saved mesh assets.
Thanks`

 

I'm using UMA. I have a base race that has multiple blendshapes for the body type, but I need to swap heads as I create them. For example, right now I made 5 different heads, but my game has multiple characters and I will definitely make more heads in the future. I can theoretically swap heads with Wardrobe recipes in UMA, as my early tests proved successful.

The problem I have is the hair meshes. I have a dozen or so meshes that are fit to the "default" head shape of my UMA race. While looking for a solution I stumbled upon Skinn. It looks like I can just re-skin the hair mesh to any new headshape I have, which is great.

Is it possible to do so at runtime, though?

I want players to be able to customize different playable characters with outfits, hairstyles, etc. and making copies of the same hairstyle for each different head is not something I'm too keen on, because if I have 6 characters with 24 hairstyles each, then that's 144 prefabs to manage and that can be a problem.

Also, what are compute shaders and how do I know if the shader I'm using is one of them? I'm using the MToon shader.

Thank you.

 

Hi, sorry about the late response.


Yes you can use the Vertex Mapper in run-time on some platforms. "Compute Shaders" refers to the cg language. The VM should work with any platform that supports DirectX or OpenGL.

The VM will work with any material, Compute Shaders are programs that run on the graphics card, outside of the normal rendering
pipeline.

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-ComputeShader.html
http://developer.download.nvidia.com/cg/Cg_language.html

 

@cwmanley No worries, thanks for the response.

I confirmed that the toon shader I'm using is a compute shader. So that's good.

Now, I want to know how do I go about using Skinn at runtime? For example when I change hairstyles, I just load the hairstyle prefab with the Skinn component? That can't be right...

 

The Vertex Mapper Component has a few public functions to call.

public void Create();

public bool Create(Renderer Target, out SkinnedMeshRenderer smr);

public bool Create(SkinnedMeshRenderer Source, Renderer Target, out SkinnedMeshRenderer smr);

You can also use the same function that the VM is using if you want to skip the component all together.

       internal static bool VertexMap(this SkinnedMeshRenderer source, Renderer target,

            out int[] mapping,

            out float[] mappingDistance,

            out Vector3[] targetVertices,

            out Vector3[] targetNormals,

            out Vector4[] targetTangents,

            out BoneWeight[] boneWeights,

            out Blendshape[] blendshapes,

            BakeOptions bakeSource = null,

            BakeOptions bakeTarget = null,

            SearchOptions searchOptions = null,

            WeightProjection weightOptions = null,

            ShapeProjection shapeOptions = null

            ){ }

For your case you could use a VM prefab to contain settings for mapping hair and then call a Create function on the prefab.

VertexMapper vm;

Renderer myHair;

SkinnedMeshRenderer myHairInstance;



if(vm.Create(vm.Source, myHair, out myHairInstance))

{

}

Please let me know if you need anything else or have any suggestions.

Thanks

 

@cwmanley Thanks again for your time.

All right. So basically, make sure there's a VM component on the hair (it can be a prefab) with the values I need and then just go ahead and use your code to instance that prefab.

Looks good, I guess.

Now, to make it play nice with UMA, which is another beast by itself, but let's cross that bridge when we reach it.

Thanks again!

 

Hi,

I have a problem with transferring leg size blendshape on a leg bracelet, it seems like the bracelet blendshape only expands forward and backwards and not sides while the leg blendshape expands it to all sides.

 

Hi, I'm maybe having a similar problem..

My target mesh deforms with my blendshapes but it moves too far away from the mesh.

It appears that it's calculated 200% of the blendshape instead of 100%..

any ideas?

Thanks

 

This tool looks interesting. Quick question:
If I have figures from different sources (like DAZ, PMX Unitychan), that are imported in Unity, is your tool able to get an OBJ for a piece of clothing, and comform it to any of those figures, so I don't have to go to blender or 3dsmax to adapt the clothing to each different model?

Thanks.

 

Hi Christ, I am using Skinn Vertex Mapper and I have an issue.

In my example, I am trying to transfer a head to a rigged armor model. However as you may see in the picture, the head's skin overflow the armor.
In order to prevent this, I tried to scale up the armor model a little bit and then hit click to "Create", it spawned the head at same undesired position. Similarly, I tried to scale down the model that has the head and click "Create", same result happened.

Is there any way to fix or position the target asset, maybe by playing its transform in your Inspector component? Or how can I spawn the head considering the scales of both models like I explained my previous work on the above? I will appreciate very much if there is any way to improve the result.

Thanks for the great tool!

 

I had a similar issue while ago ( not related to this tool tho) and i fixed it by making part of the neck/shoulders transparent.

 

Thanks for the reply and suggestion, unfortunately this won't work for me, because this armor model is not modular. This one consists of only chest and arms (2 pieces in total).

I need the head a little low (0.01 on Y transform would be enough really) however I don't know how to do that yet.

 

it sounds like scaling is not the solution. Did you try moving the head down on the Y axis?

As I recall, the rigged model is the reference so it can't be adjusted, needs to be at 0,0,0
The head is the add-on, so reposition the head before you use SKINN.

I think there is a popup menu with a toggle switch, that concerns recording the transforms… It's been a while so I don't remember the exact verbiage…, and this is from memory with the pro version.

 

Yes, I tried moving the head down on the Y axis, no good result unfortunately. It is head of another model with Skinned Mesh Renderer, thus moving doesn't give result.

I tried almost all toggles, if there is anything specific you would like me to try, I will be happy if you can let me know. Thanks.

 

Ahh, now I understand why you tried scale,

you need to separate the skinned mesh from its rig. I think the method is to click on the head's Skinned Mesh component gear (right click?), and there should be an option to export the skinned mesh as a regular mesh in the scene (I think) it copies the mesh so it's non-destructive, but you get a duplicate in the scene and that one you can reposition … sorry, I'm blanking on what it's called "bake … mesh … something..."

 

Thanks for the reply, yes I did like that. Then I noticed I have QuickEdit (a Skinned Mesh Editor) and I immediately moved the mesh's transform a little lower on Y direction, then all my problem is solved with it

However, if we can have a little more settings, whether we want to modify Transform positions of the Target mesh without the need to depending on a third party plugin, that would be amazing (so we guarantee its rig positions too I believe). So this is my request to cwmanley kindly.

 

Hi,

The 'Bind-pose' command makes the current skinned position the the bind-pose/rest-pose of the skinned mesh.

@wetcircuit is right though the VM bind-poses as well. You can use the the gizmos section of the VM to preview the results in real-time in conjunction with the Baking settings.

 

FFD

There is a experimental Bone Based FFD tool that can manipulate meshes. A more advanced FFD is in the works, it will work the same as the Bone Based FFD on the users end, but the results should be far better.


Paint Deformation - Not Yet

I temporally removed the Delta Canvas, but it will come back.

The Delta Canvas's main purpose was to touch up the simple projection in Skinn before 0.6. I decided to improve the projection rather than focus on a patch.


Thanks

 

Did you sort out the problem using the Gizmo section of the Vertex Mapper? By default what you can see is what you get; the gizmos display how the target and source is baked/skinned in real-time.

 

@wetcircuit Thanks for helping out so much, I really really really appreciate it.

@... I am sorry I had to step back from this project for a spell, life caught up with me pretty hard after I spent so much time on 0.6. Personal issues aside the path to 1.0 is clearer than ever before.

Thanks for all the feedback,
Chris

 

Hey! It seems like the demo video are slightly outdated (or I did something wrong cos the asset looks different for me). Want to clarify some things:
1) I want to add a new blendshape (from a separate mesh file) to a skinned mesh, is it possible with VM?
2) I want to add a new blendhsape (from a separate mesh file) to an UMA slot, is it possible with VM?
3) What's the difference between free and $60 edition?

 

Hello, Thanks for checking out the VM.

Current demo videos for Skinn 0.6+.

1. Yes assign a source(your "separate mesh file" as a skinned mesh) and a target (your skinned mesh) to the VM and disable Weight Projection(otherwise the skinning from the source will be used).

2. Yes, but not directly you need to use the source asset of the slot as a target then update the slot once you are done with the VM. The slot builder creates standard mesh assets that can be used with the VM, I work with those and use the drag and drop feature on the slot itself to apply any changes I make to the mesh.

3. The free version includes the VM only.

• 
  
  
  • Free

Vertex Mapper
1 Context Command to save meshes.

• Paid

Vertex Mapper

Core Features:

• Save unsaved mesh assets while creating prefabs.
• Drag & Drop models to merge their bones.
• Nested Context Command System with over 80 commands for working with assets.

Notable Context Command Features:

• Optimize and remove unwanted Bones..
• Split Meshes by sub-mesh, uv, or bone.
• Inflate and deflate meshes.
• Combine Meshes merge sub-meshes with shared materials.
• Remove or rename Blend-shapes and reuse filters as text assets.
• Basic FBX exporting
• See the first post for a full list of context commands.

Thanks

 

oh, thanks for fast response! I just bought the full version of VM to be sure we're on the same point but I still don't have success with a new blendshape creating. Starting from the very first part "adding separate mesh as a skinned mesh" I can't add mesh file as a "skinned mesh" cos it's not a skinned mesh, it's just a separate mesh file. No skeleton or something, and vm didn't see it as a valid source asset

 

Thanks for your purchase

Can you try using the Context Command "MeshRenderer/Skin/SkinToParent" to prepare the source for the VM?

Not being able to use a un-skinned mesh as a source for the VM is a design flaw I will try to address. Maybe it could fallback to just using the shape of the mesh as a single blendshape?...

Please let me know if you have any other issues.

 

Oh, ok, I made a skinned mesh instead of a simple mesh for testing purpose, but I still don't really understand how to deal with this task. I assign a source and a target, disable Weight Projection and what's next? VM have a "create" button and if I press it - it just creates a copy of my target asset.

 

Let me describe the task precisely once again.I have a prefab with my character setup. With different scripts, hierarchy and so on over the rigged character model. I need to add a new blendshape to the character mesh in this prefab. I have a completely separated mesh (with the same vertex order) that I want to be a new blendshape target for my character. Please, guide me, how exactly I could use VM to make it happen?

 

Hi, sorry I did not understand.

The VM is for projection only as of 0.6. The next update will contain more commands for blend-shapes, till then here is a wip context command for pasting blend-shapes to meshes with matching vertex counts.

Skinn\StandardAssets\Scripts\Editor\Commands\SkinnCtx.Renderer.Clipboard.Paste.Blendshapes.cs

Code (CSharp):

1. using UnityEngine;
2.  
3. namespace CWM.Skinn
4. {
5.     public static partial class SkinnContextCommands
6.     {
7.    
8.         [CtxMenuItem("Renderer/Clipboard/Paste/Blend-shapes",
9.             "Pastes blend-shapes from one skinned mesh renderer to another, existing blend-shapes will be skipped",
10.              ContextFlag.PasteFunction, 001)]
11.         public static void RendererPasteBlendshapes()
12.         {
13.             var item = SkinnContext.GetContextItem();
14.             if (item && SkinnEx.IsNullOrNotInAScene(item.transform)) return;
15.             var context = item.GetComponent<Renderer>();
16.             if (SkinnEx.IsNullOrNotVailid(context)) return;
17.  
18.             var copyContext = (Renderer)SkinnContext.CopyRef.Asset;
19.             if (!copyContext) return;
20.             var copyMesh = copyContext.GetSharedMesh();
21.  
22.             var mesh = context.GetSharedMesh().Clone() as Mesh;
23.  
24.             if (mesh.CopyBlendshapes(copyMesh))
25.             {
26.                 SkinnContext.UndoRecord(context, "Paste Blend-shapes");
27.                 context.SetSharedMesh(mesh);
28.             }
29.             else
30.             {
31.                 Debug.LogWarning("Paste Blendshapes Failed.");
32.             }
33.  
34.             SkinnContext.Finished();
35.         }
36.    }
37. }

Thanks

 

Hi, thanks for this asset! I am using the free version and it works really great in the Unity macOS editor, however, when I deploy it to iOS it would throw GPU errors.
Firstly, is iOS a supported platform in your plan? I am asking this in case this asset is not designed for such usage in the first place (and sorry for taking your time if so). I know iOS devices might not be powerful enough but I still wish to use your asset with iOS (as the Unity manual do mention Compute Shader support with Metal on macOS & iOS).
Secondly, when I first run the 'Vertex Mapper' example scene on an iPad Pro 11' (Unity 2019.2 / 2019.3, iOS 13.2.2, Xcode 11.2.1) there are errors like:

Metal: Compute shader (LinearSkinning.LinearSkinPass) has 1024 threads in a threadgroup which is more than the supported max of 640 in this device

I am not familiar with Compute Shaders, after some searches, I tried to modify the ThreadGroupSizeX from 1024 to 512 in the LinearSkinning.compute file and it still having issues like this:

Execution of the command buffer was aborted due to an error during execution. Caused GPU Hang Error (IOAF code 3)



Mapping Failed.

CWM.Skinn.VertexMapper:Create(SkinnedMeshRenderer, Renderer, SkinnedMeshRenderer&)

CWM.Skinn.VertexMapper:Create()

UnityEngine.Events.UnityAction:Invoke()

UnityEngine.Events.UnityEvent:Invoke()

(Filename: ./Runtime/Export/Debug/Debug.bindings.h Line: 35)



Execution of the command buffer was aborted due to an error during execution. Ignored (for causing prior/excessive GPU errors) (IOAF code 4)

Are there possible fixes to this issue? Or are iOS devices just too limited to support? Thanks!

 

oh, so I just buy the asset that actually can't help me to solve my tasks

 

Hi,

I have not tested using the vertex mapper in run-time on iOS. Thanks for sharing the iOS errors. With the next major VM update I plan on supporting iOS and moblie platforms.

I recommend saving the mesh generated by the vertex mapper and using it as a asset if possible.

Thanks

 

Sorry if I did not explain well, Can you try this new Context Command?

Context Click(Right-Click) a renderer's header and select 'Skinn: Edit' to access the context commands.

1. Install package
2. Source Renderer execute 'Skinn: Edit/Clipboard/Copy'
3. Target Renderer execute 'Skinn: Edit/Clipboard/Paste/Blendshapes'

If your not happy with the asset you can pm about a refund, but I hope the asset can be useful to you.

Thanks

 

Oh, I'm sorry I didn't explain it well from the very beginning, that's my fault. I tried this command and it looks very close to what I need, but it still not actually the tool i'm looking for. If I understand right it allow to copy blendshapes from one model to another. But I don't want to copy blendshapes, I want to create new blendhsape using the separate mesh source as a target. Here, I draw some explanation.

I have:
1) Rigged model.
2) Completely separate mesh.fbx file with the same vertex order. No skeleton, no blendshapes, just pure mesh.
I want to use this mesh as a blendhsape target for rigged model, so the rigged model will have new blendhsape similar to this mesh.fbx

 

Thanks for your patience. Can you try another command?

Clipboard/Paste/Mesh As Blend-shape

The source can be a Mesh Renderer or Skinned Mesh Renderer. Modifying the transforms or bones of the source will affect the blend-shape that is created. The target renderer's true mesh position is used so it's transformation does not matter. The blend-shape is named after the source game-object, if a another shape with the same name exist it will be override.

Context Click(Right-Click) a renderer's header and select 'Skinn: Edit' to access the context commands.

1. Install package
2. Source Renderer execute 'Skinn: Edit/Clipboard/Copy'
3. Target Renderer execute 'Skinn: Edit/Clipboard/Paste/Mesh As Blendshape'

Please let me know if you have any more issues.

 

Hello,

I tried the free version to experiment if it works for my needs. I skinned my cloth and then exported the mesh but I couldnt turn it into a prefab, when I drag it into the scene I dont see anything. The first thing missing is the Root bone reference of the skinned mesh (since its referencing the character root bone) but even if I add it, its not showing the mesh

 

Hi,

The free context command only saves the renderer's mesh. Once you save a mesh you can assign it right back to it's renderer and then save the model as a prefab.

Mesh Saving Free Editon
1. Save mesh from SkinnedMeshRenderer using context commmand.
2. Assign saved-mesh to mesh's SkinnedMeshRenderer.
3. Create Prefab. The prefab needs to include all the bones used by any Skinned Mesh Renderers.

Thanks

 

Oh, yes!!! That's it! Thank you so much for your support, that's really a lifesaver!

 

Can I isolate this and only have a prefab of the exact cloth? Im instantiating the clothes and they must be separate prefabs not a part of the character prefab...

 

Yes, you should be able to arrange the prefabs anyway you need.

If you turn off weight projection and shape projection you can use the VM to instantiate and merge the bones of a skinned mesh renderer. You can check the VM for a example of using the Skinn API to merge clothing if you want to skip the VM component.

Thanks

 

Thanks to Skinn, I no longer hate working with skinned meshes. Mixing and matching pieces of models to create new characters and loadouts is a breeze.

 

Thank you

If you have any issues please let me know.

I am sorry that I am so behind with the updates, but I have some cool features in the works for 2020.

Mid 2020 god-willing I will release a free Hairworks plugin with native apx file support based off of UTJ's HW plugin. I started working on a HW plugin a few years back. I know there are other options available, but mine should be quite different focusing on creating apx files in Unity.

Procedural Hair Style December 30th, 2018 from my uma slack lurking.

Thanks Again,
Chris

 

I've made some tutorials using Skinn (free and paid): Skin clothing and combine sub-meshes.
They are intended for Unity beginners, they go a little in-depth for Adobe Fuse users but the parts about Skinn apply to any figure system.

 

Another Skinn tutorial. Combine blend shapes and add character morphs to your figures using Bake to Mesh Renderer and Mesh to Blend Shape.

 

Great video!

I fixed the bug where blend-shapes were not being name when prompted to rename and no longer disable the context renderer.

I am adding a few new commands to extract blend-shape(s) without baking the skin, that should help with the bind-pose issue. You could also merge to a skeleton that is in the correct pose and then use the bind-pose command if you can't ex[port in the bind-pose for some reason.

SkinnedMeshRenderer/Shapes/Extract/All
SkinnedMeshRenderer/Shapes/Extract/Single

The command system has been updated to handle Bone/Bone and Shape/Shape with-out slowing down the system allowing for some new commands.

SkinnedMeshRenderer/Bones/Combine
SkinnedMeshRenderer/Shapes/Combine

The main feature of the new update will be a unique editor texture atlas tool called the Texture Packer.

• Manipulate UV islands with the default transform tools.
• Render only the visible parts of a texture.
• Simple Grid Layout.
• Texture Padding.
• Save as a prefab or scene for later use when creating non uniform atlases.

​

Thanks you for making videos tutorials for Skinn. I will send you a beta package to test while I am wrapping up the new update. ​

​

 

Bone Combine….

 

Hi,
Is there is possible to save copied blendshapes mesh into prefab ?
If I try to make prefab, the mesh property in prefab is empty ?

 

Hi,

If your using the paid version you should be prompted to save any unsaved meshes when creating a prefab.

With the free version there is a SkinnedMeshRenderer context command to save meshes
Right-click the header of a SkinnedMeshRenderer the choose "Skinn VM: Save Mesh". Use the saved mesh with the prefab.

Better yet. If your using 2018.3+ import the FBX Exporter from the package manager and use that to create a fbx.

Thanks