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Hi All,
I'm pleased to announce my long awaited UMA race creation series, first episode now available.

 

And another one:

 

Oh wow ... lots of sneaky scaling type errors that need to be uncovered and fixed in this process, I see! Thanks so much for clearly documenting it.

 

You are very welcome, there are cleaner ways of doing it, like removing keyframes at the very beginning. But I think you learn more by seeing all the ugly "gotchas" . There are plenty more to come, wait until you see the squiffy normals and twisty feet.

 

While I'm thinking about it, let me ask a couple of "simple" questions about the state of blendshapes in UMA and Unity.

First, in Unity are blendshapes now more performant? It used to be they were terrible drains on performance and it was best to avoid them, except perhaps for "hero" characters. I think a variety of optimization ideas were discussed, like baking a blendshape to have a permanent effect, and sleeping blendshapes to stop the constant recalculations. Not sure if any of that has come to pass or not.

Second, specifically for UMA, while I think blendshape functionality was added a few updates ago (thank you, Steering Committee peeps!), we never really got a set of official default blendshapes on the basic models, right? So is the committee looking to add some, like facial blendshapes such as those used by Fuse, and/or body morphs that address certain weaknesses that might exist in UMA's adjust bone framework?

For myself, I like the functionality of the facial bone structure UMA currently has, but I suspect we could get some added benefit from using a few well-chosen blendshapes too. However, performance is a concern.

 

Well, I'm no expert but I have got it working, both with horrible performance and eventually with far better results (which I am going to share with you in a future episode).

In terms of performance if we tried to use our character as it stands at the end of part 2, UMA would struggle. 50 blendshapes effectively makes the whole mesh 50 times larger as the position of each vertex in each blendshape needs to be stored somewhere. This is not a fun thing.... However, by the time we get around to converting this model, we will have isolated the blendshapes to just a single "face" slot. Far fewer vertices and rationalizing the number of blendshapes means we'll get a lot better performance. Because it's a slot, we can swap it out when we don't need the animation blendshapes, but keep any morphing blendshapes. If you optimize carefully in blender, you can get some great results.

Hopefully I can open this subject up for everyone to try it for themselves, but I'm very impressed with the results I've had so far.

 

@SecretAnorak Hey do you have any plans of doing an Invector integration Script?

 

@Aaron2348 Like this?

 

Lol my bad I must of missed this one, Thanks Man!!

 

Ans also I'm following the UMA201 videos, and had a question, is coding in new slots not something you have to do anymore? Because in the video I did not see you Open a script to convert clothing to UMA.

 

Hello there!

I'm very noob and im trying to use UMA. The first project work all fine. But now i got 6 errors that looks the same:

Assets/UMA/Examples/Extensions Examples/DynamicCharacterSystem/Assets/Resources/Scene1/SampleCode.cs(208,21): error CS1061: Type `MouseOrbitImproved' does not contain a definition for `Reset' and no extension method `Reset' of type `MouseOrbitImproved' could be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?

Assets/UMA/Examples/Extensions Examples/DynamicCharacterSystem/Scripts/Scene2and3/TestCustomizerDD.cs(158,15): error CS1061: Type `MouseOrbitImproved' does not contain a definition for `SwitchTarget' and no extension method `SwitchTarget' of type `MouseOrbitImproved' could be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?


Can anyone help me please?

 

Hi guys!
I'm having trouble with custom race, the characters spawns rotated and hands do weird stuff, also character is not only rotated its also floats in the air. here is the pic

 

You probably have two scripts with the same name. The "MouseOrbitImproved" that UMA uses has been modified quite a bit.

 

Have you seen this?

https://www.patreon.com/posts/uma-301-part-2-19838573

 

Hello, this might have being answered before but I didn't find the answer, that what is polycount of the characters made with UMA, I am working on mobile game. And I don't have much experience with UMA

 

I'm a little below noob level and wanted to ask a general question. I've just started looking at videos and I'm curious about its capacities.

1. I'm making a zombie shooter, is it possible to dynamically create different zombies based on recipe at the start of a scene load and keep the amount of materials down. if I wanted 40 totally unique characters that shared some of the same clothes, I'm assuming that UMA would create a new material for each unique character?

2. Is it possible to use UMA to apply blood overlays (in an efficient way) on a character during runtime in a FPS shooter, or is performance strictly for applying overlays and removing overlays really meant for an in-game character creation scene.

3. Can limbs on a character be hidden during runtime, as I want to show dismemberment.

I doubt these can be done (and I've already worked on my own dismemberment system)...just wanted to get a better understanding of UMA's capabitlities.

 

It will vary depending on what you add to the UMA, and what base races you use. The base (low res) model has about 6700 polygons. There are also mid and high resolution meshes with more polygons. The races that are included by default use the mid and low meshes (Mid head and hands, low everything else).

UMA builds texture atlases and combines meshes to give you maximum performance. But the size will depend on what you add to it, and what gets removed from it. (Adding gloves can remove hands if they are hidden, for example). Here are some counts that I just pulled:

Base Male Human: 11,188 triangles.
Human with Will B's cleric Armor on: 13,137
Human with Will B's Iron Armor on: 16,678

 

1. Yes, UMA will create a material for each submesh. It will combine as many materials as possible to make the smallest number. There is also a LOD system for textures (see the sample scene). This can lower the dynamically generated texture resolution based on distance, allowing you to have many more UMA's on screen at one time with good response time.

2. Sort of. You can dynamically add blood splatter. But for targeted spots, you'd need to add some sort of decal (someone asked about this a few messages ago). Will B has some good grunge/splatter texture overlays.

3. Yes, but you'd need to model the replacements (ie, the bloody meat part with the bone sticking out). If you just removed the arms, then people would see they were one-sided. By default, the arms are attached to the torso, so you would need to break those out into their own slots. Then create a "stump" slot for each side. Then when chopping off the arm, you would replace the arm with the stump. Note that if you had long sleeve clothing, you would need to do that also.

 

Thanks Jaimi for reply, Problem Solved. The problem was Root bone orientation, I've just rotated Root bone X orientation on -90

 

Hey guys. How would you recommend approaching this situation.
I have different textures for base body model, sort of like skins. And I want to be able to change that skin on a character.
I tried adding new skin as a new overlay and adding that overlay to the base race recipe, but overlays sort of go on top of each other right? If they are layered on same slot?

Can I create different base race slots and replace those as I would clothes? or is other method preferable?

 

Simplest thing to do is to just create a wardrobe item for the new skins - like we do for the faces. Add the torso slot to the wardrobe recipe, and add your new skin overlay to it. That would then be layered over the top of the old skin (in this case, completely replacing it).

 

Would that conflict let's say with armor slot that uses torso?

 

No - the armor slot would need it's own set of overlays for spatter.

This works, because when you build a character, duplicate slots are discarded, and the overlays for the duplicates are added to the overlay list for the original slot (and simply "overlayed" on the top of them).

 

Thanks a lot for the detailed response.

I’ll go ahead and start working on some simple examples to get a baseline on performance.

 

What is the variable that holds all the Json Data?

I think the Function that does it is:
DynamicCharacterAvatar.cs line: 1854
public void DoSave(bool saveAsAsset = false, string filePath = "", SaveOptions customSaveOptions = SaveOptions.useDefaults)

but I cant seem to figure out what holds the data!?!?

 

@SecretAnorak
Do you know if we can use characters from Fuse in our own games?
The same question goes for the rigs and morphs from Mixamo?

Would it be faster if i use bones for the face and not blendshapes?
Can i see or read somewhere wich bones UMA support for faces?

Edit:
Just found this to answer the first two questions
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1992542

 

Adobe is pretty free and easy with Fuse characters and Mixamo animations. You can use them for whatever you like with the sole exception being distributing the raw files. That's why I can't give you the files in my tutorial. I was about to send you that very link you put in your edit

As for bones or blendshapes,..... I really can't answer that,... it depends what you're trying to achieve. I'm yet to do any extensive testing. I do know that blendshapes take up a lot of space, especially with high poly meshes, but will give you very precise results. Bones add to the complexity of the skinned mesh, but allow for more freeform adjustments without increased model size, the sacrifice is accuracy. Hopefully after you're done with this series, you will find testing both methods nice and easy so you can make up your own mind.

With regard to "which bones are supported", you can make up any rig you like. As you'll see later on in this series, we can set UMA dna up to drive any bones we like in any way we like,...….. we love you UMA

 

I downloaded and started playing around with UMA...I now see why it so powerful.

I am currently making a VR zombie game, so performance is crucial for my project. I want to use UMA characters so that I can show dismemberment and damage at runtime.

My plan was to create new meshes and materials to create new Overlays and use Slots to replace meshes.

Code (CSharp):

1.         avatar.SetSlot ("Legs", "MalePants");
2.         avatar.BuildCharacter();

I noticed that when the above code is called, it creates a spike in the profiler. This would make it too expensive for me to use at runtime for added blood Overlays or swapping out Slots.

Is there a way to stagger the work so it doesn't all happen in one frame?

I've been looking at the code and had no luck so far.


EDIT: Ok, I've setup a test scene in my project and noticed that the spike isn't so bad and seems to be running much better than I originally thought.

 

Anyone got a clue to my question? Would greatly appreciate it ^^

What is the variable that holds all the Json Data?

 

Since DNA requires the use of bones, does having more bones take more horsepower to run in the animator (Similar to a regular Unity character) or does UMA do some magic to dynamiclally reduce them at runtime?

I want to make sure (for my zombies) that the normal ones are as efficient at possible.

 

I don't have data at my disposal for bone usage, but generally it is extremely efficient, and the last time it was tested (a year or so ago) it was far more efficient than blendshapes. There's probably some test results on that like 30 pages back in this thread.

Another cool thing about the bones is that UMA is prepared to strip out any that you don't need after character generation. So if you want to use the adjust bones in the character creation phase and then get rid of them once the character has been shaped, you can. The expression bones, I believe, can be set up with LOD so that they are deleted when the character is too far away to see the expression. There used to be example scenes for this; not sure what the present situation is.

So you can do a variety of things to make your game more efficient, like create crowds where they have either no expression or a single individual expression that doesn't change, or they can gain / lose expression bones as they pass in and out of range. If you're thinking of using blendshapes, my prior experience suggests that they are going to drain performance fast, even on desktop, so best to use them sparingly.

 

Thanks for the reply.

I'm currently activating facial blendshapes on my zombies that are close to the player....but have them culled when at a distance.

I didn't know that it could remove the bones after I generated the shape or remove them based on distance...I've gotta find how to use both of those.

 

Yes thank you hopeful and SekretAnorak.

 

It's an uma text recipe, an asset. If you mean before serializing it, then it's umaData.umaRecipe.

 

You can "bake out" the adjustment bones if you use the Power Tools:

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/uma-power-tools-2-14249

 

@SecretAnorak is unstoppable!

Excellent videos, sir!

 

Is it possible to put a Slot over another Slot?

I want to create heavy damage to a character, but I want the character to get that damage whether they have no shirt or a variety of shirts on.

I plan on making a mesh that would be used in a wardrobe recipe. Is possible to make a slot that can go over any other slot? If not, would I have to make damaged versions of any wardrobe I make?

 

Nice! It sounds like you may also be in a position to report on how frame rate is affected by blendshapes. Just scale it up so you have maybe 300 zombies in the scene, and then move the camera in and out of the LOD distance.

It's possible that having like a half dozen blenshapes on those zombies would not be a big drag, especially when using LOD on them.

 

If I'm understanding correctly, you can use another slot if you want to add another small mesh to the character. However, you can also add just an overlay, if you are using predefined damage spots that only affect the texture. You would have to do this for each clothing item, though; that is, have essentially a damaged and undamaged version.

Another option might be to use a shader that shows damage in some predefined way, kind of like a damage / dissolve shader. It really depends on what you want your damage hints to be like.

 

We are trying to make a big project using UMA.
The customization page is almost done.
However we found that the DNA data options are not enough. E.g eye pupils color, size, eye width, eye distance, etc.

Am I missing something? Or UMA does not support very detailed customization yet?
Many Thanks!

 

The included models are a starting point. For many people, these are good enough.
for others, you may want to add some more bones, some more blendshapes, and the DNA to drive them.

SecretAnorak has some excellent videos (see above) on adding bones and blendshapes.

Note that for ease of use, I recommend using Blendshapes for facial features and other modifications that won't affect clothing or other additional items. Blendshapes only affect the meshes they are defined on, so if you change someones head with a blendshape, be careful it doesn't affect a hat. (unless you want to add blendshapes for the hat, and sync them up)

 

From the tests I tried with UMA

I just ran a test with 300 zombie heads (their heads are split from their body). Each head has 6 Blendshapes, which I tweened from 0 to 100 (2 seconds) and back from 100 to 0 (2 seconds).

For some strange reason, I didn't see much of a difference in performance between the heads without the Blendshapes being manipulated to the ones tweened.

This was done with just normal character models (not UMA)….not sure if this is a performance consideration with UMA.

 

A friend of mine actually created a shader (with Amplify) that can show blood in predefined locations (based on a mask), but I wanted to create more damage than just blood (texture).

Thats why I was asking about the meshes, I want to be able to swap out undamaged meshes with damaged at runtime.

Ok, so it looks like there is a lot more modeling work for me, since I'm going to have to also do the clothes....I will have to figure out some clever ways to reduce the workload. I may have to have more models with short sleeve shirts so I can reuse arms.

 

I don't think it makes a difference if the blendshapes are manipulated or not, merely that they exist at all. I'm not sure, though. My very limited experience in this area was back when blendshapes were first introduced in Unity.

 

When i animate the avatar, it keeps doing this