UMA - Unity Multipurpose Avatar on the Asset Store!

Hello,

I now have UMA the latest working pretty much OK. Just two console error message issues which do not prevent any serious problem.

1. I have a character model with the Buffer issue being too complex a character.

2. I have an error message if I try and use a trigger to Activate or Deactivate a UMA character as opposed to any other. This is related to the UMA Renderer.

These are not mission critical at the moment as the levels and characters still run in gameplay....however I would like to correct them. These issues have only recently appeared in recent versions of Unity whereas the same activation of objects and UMA characters caused no errors for some years and Unity versions previously...

Due to "Known" issues in Unity itself I have some problems updating many things as one of the Known Unity issues/bugs causes Unity to have to reimport assets when a script change is made and with Around 530 thousand items in my project folder Unity takes around two hours just to do that at which time one cant do anything while Unity is busy. I spend much of my time constantly waiting for Unity to do its thing until the issue if fixed by them.

Anyway there was specifically something else I wanted to ask please? regarding the Global Library...

My global library seems to be working OK with listed Items, however none of them seem to be selected and I wanted to ask if they should be. Thiis does not prevent the UMA charcters from displaying their recipie items as far as I can see so it does not seem to cause any issues for them...

I am not using "Addressables" at the moment as I have enough issues all round with Unity at present to contend with and if it works then want to leave well alone on that one for the moment.

I have attached a screen shot of the Global Library...



Thanks and Kind regards

Peter

 

Hello! We are encountering weird mesh normal artifacts when loading an UMA race from an addressables asset bundle.

The race appears fine when loaded directly in the source project, but when we load it as an addressable on any platform we see artifacts.

Couple notes:
-UMA version 2.1.0
-We've tried uncompressed and LZ4 bundle compression settings
-(Shouldn't be relevant) we are generating our addressables in a separate project from the app the consumes them.
-Only has been noticed on our races, not with any other wardrobe recipes / slots.
-Our race has many blendshapes so perhaps this may contribute?

I've attached these images below:
-No artifacts when viewed in source project
-Visible artifacts when loaded from bundles
-FBX import settings for the race model.

Has anyone seen this before, or have any ideas how to fix it? Thanks!

 

Hi Peter - the Selection is used when you want have the "utilities" panel open, and use "Apply material to selection", or when you use one of the menu items that operates on the selected items. That isn't used for anything during runtime. If you're getting an error about the buffer size, you might try to enable 32 bit buffers in the UMA preferences.

 

I have not seen that before. It appears to be vertex normals, just from a quick look. Is it possible that the slot was fixed, but the bundles were not rebuilt? At edit time, it will use the slot from the project. But at runtime, it will load the slot from the bundles. I personally mess this up a lot. (lol).

 

I definitely rebuilt the bundles because I had to change the profiles to test locally. I haven't tried running "Addressables>Build>Clean Build>All" yet though, I'll check that now.

Oddly enough our previous races don't have this issue, it seems to be only the new race. I don't see any differences in the generated slots or source fbx import settings between the versions.

 

Is there a way to have a recipe overwrite an overlay?

Example:
I have a torso that uses Overlay Body1 by default.
But when I use Face2 I want the torso to use Overlay Body2.

 

Yes. If you want to overwrite an overlay, include the slot the overlay is on in the new recipe, and put the new overlay on it. The duplicate slot will be removed during the build, and the overlay will be added on the top of the overlay list for the slot.

 

Ok So when I look at the slots after "Face2" overrides it it looks like this:



The first overlay is from the Overlay Body1 and the second one is from the Face2.
Should both show like that?

 

Yes, the overlays stack in order.

 

Hello, I am referencing some UMA bones in a script but they keep getting rebuilt whenever I change UMA clothes. This is causing my script to lose reference to those bones. I have rebuild skeleton unclicked. Am I misunderstanding the use of that button? Please advise

 

Editor time generation is on, and rebuild skeleton is off? I'm not seeing this. Are you on 2.11.6 or an earlier version?

 

I am using 2.11.6, attached is a link to video showing what is happening. The video takes place inside the prefab. I place the UMA root inside the script and then take UMA clothes off and put on new clothes. After that you will see that the reference I just placed is no longer there

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F61__H1N4HfQtRdI4iD9W5_9NvikVEzR/view?usp=sharing

 

Oh - I see. It doesn't do it at startup or in game, but the editor code is doing it. I'll fix it and get it into 2.11.7

 

And to clarify, yes. Editor time generation is on and rebuild skeleton is off

 

Ohh gotcha, thanks

 

Actually the change is pretty simple if you don't want to wait. In DynamicCharacterAvatarEditor.cs, In CleanupGeneratedData, pass false to thisDCA.Hide():

Code (CSharp):

1.             void CleanupGeneratedData()
2.             {
3.                 if (Application.isPlaying)
4.                     return;
5.                 List<GameObject> Cleaners = GetRenderers(thisDCA.gameObject);
6.                 thisDCA.Hide(false);
7.                 foreach (GameObject go in Cleaners)
8.                 {
9.                     DestroyImmediate(go);
10.                 }
11.                 DestroyImmediate(thisDCA.umaData);
12.                 thisDCA.umaData = null;
13.                 thisDCA.ClearSlots();
14.             }

Note that this will cause the system to mess up at edit time if you change races, and "rebuild skeleton" is off, and the race has an incompatible rig. (it will also mess up at runtime if you do that)

 

Well, that *should* have worked, but doesn't seem to be for me. I will keep looking at it.

Edit: It actually does work, I tested the wrong project. Lol.

 

Awesome, thanks for the quick fix!

 

I have another question regarding in game switching of clothes. When I try to clearslot, it doesn't remove the clothes from the requested slot during runtime. While in editor I am able to go into the prefab and change slot items through customization tab. I know for a fact that the slot name and recipe name are correct.
Example code I am using to switch:
umaAvatar.ClearSlot("Legs");
umaAvatar.SetSlot("Legs", "RecipeName2");
Please advice

 

A slot can only contain one wardrobe item. ClearSlot() will clear that item, so the slot contains nothing. SetSlot will replace an item in a slot, or add it if nothing is there. In order for that change to be visible, you need to rebuild the character -- BuildCharacter(false);

 

Hello, sorry I left that part out of the example code I gave you but I am building the character after I switch slots. I am using UMA clothes from Arteria 3d and have rebuilt the global library to add them. I can change them through code fine on my first scene but once I switch scenes is when it breaks.
Note: When I switch slots the recipe string changes to accomodate the switch but for some reason the build doesnt show the change (I tried doing BuildRecipeFromString as well as BuildCharacter)
Note: The UMA has the scripts UMASimpleLOD and DCARendererManager, dont know if those affect anything

Also is there any documentation where I can see the difference between events like CharacterUpdated and RecipeUpdated?

 

Unfortunately I haven't documented those yet.

CharacterCreated is called after the character has been generated the first time.
CharacterUpdated is called after every build.
RecipeUpdated is called after the recipe has been created from the merge of all the different recipes (race/wardrobe/etc), but before it has been sent to generate.

A common cause for this behavior is trying to build your character in an event. We guard against this, because it would cause an infinite loop. (generate -> event fires -> generate -> event fires, etc). Sometimes people think that CharacterCreated means "I have created the object, but nothing else has been done". But that's not what it means.

When you switch scenes, do you have a UMA_GLIB in the next scene - or have you marked your UMA_GLIB from the first scene with the "Dont Destroy" flag?

 

So we are using a custom event that detects when an item (which contains the slot name and item name) is equipped through my custom inventory. We wanted to rebuild the avatar every time an item is added/switched. The event is hitting and we are getting the debug call that is showing the correct slot name and item name but the avatar build isn't changing the character (despite the recipe being changed). Are you saying that is because the avatar build doesn't work in events?

Also we are using UMA_DCS not UMA_GLIB and I have it set to DoNotDestroy. Should I switch to GLIB? I didn't really understand the difference between a DCS character and a normal character but I followed Secret Anorak's tutorial and he uses it so I just followed.

 

You should switch to UMA_GLIB. It's newer than SecretAnoraks videos. HumanMaleDCS and HumanFemaleDCS were the previous races when DCS was a separate part of UMA. You should use HumanMale and HumanFemale (or the HD versions).
You can build in events, just not in UMA events. The UMA events are generated as part of the build process, and if you build in a UMA event, that will tell tell the system to build again, and send more events. So we guard against that -- if you call build in one of the UMA events, it will refuse to generate the character.

Are you getting any errors? If you use the SImpleSetup scene, does it work correctly?

 

I switched from UMA_DCS to UMA_GLIB and it the code immediately started working. Appreciate the help and thanks for the tips!

 

Hello here

I implemented some UMA for my new project
First i really want to thank you all for the AMAZING work
Oh my god, that s sooo much and wow for letting people messing around with it

Then i have a little question
i implemented the random generator character (which works very well)
But i have a small problem

The time for my character to be generated is not null
At the end of the generation, the character shows with cloths and bla bla bla
That s fine
But i can t find any event i could listen to at the end of the generation
because the fact is, i would love my character to disappear when it s fully generated
At the moment, i can only anticipate how long it would take to make it disappear, and that s really not safe

So do you know where i could apply or listen or add a function for knowing my character is fully generated ? i tried to look at the code but... that s a sooo huge one. difficult to enter and understand.

Thank you so much

 

You will get a "CharacterUpdated" event on the DynamicCharacterAvatar when the generation of the avatar is completed. You can add the event through the inspector under the "Character Events" dropdown.

 

Thanks a lot Jaimi, sadly it seems it s not working :/
I mean, i subscribed to the event, made a enable = false for all renderer children
But... for some reason, it reactivates it just after

Very strange. Like something is remaking it enable

In fact after looking more, it seems the CharacterUpdated is not the event when the character becomes visible. I suppose there is a hidden process even after the generation. The character is here, but just he is invisible. Then he becomes visible. like this

Creation of charac
Character exists but is invisible
CharacterUpdated event
Character becomes visible

So is there an other event for after the character becomes visible ?
Or could you tell me where it is in the code for me to put an event ?
i think it s something in a coroutine

or maybe a way to generate the NPC but for him to stay invisible even if active and created ?

 

To generate the character, but make him hidden, set "Hide = true" on the avatar. He will build, but will be hidden by default. Set Hide=False when you want to show him.

 

It worked
you re a genius

 

So I was looking at the seam removal class and it uses some rather complicated method. And was wondering if there's some way to do all that directly from blender without the need from ll that process.
This not necessarily for UMA or unity even.
I've been looking to make a modular characters and would preefer if they were engine agnostic. But the seams seem like a complicated problem to deal with.

 

Not that I'm aware of. Of course, when you stitched the meshes back together, you could do some seam removal simply by averaging the normals, but the speed hit might not be great also.

 

Hello!

I've been experimenting with UMA for a little while now and attempting to create custom clothing recipes using the various tutorials provided with the plugin and I've encountered a pretty annoying roadblock which is keeping me from successfully implementing these recipes.

When it comes to bringing in either a blend file from Blender or exporting an FBX file of the object I want to make into a clothing recipe and going through the actual process of converting said object into a recipe, the object itself acts as if its not properly rigged to the character skeleton and as a result deforms pretty severely. Here's an example of a default UMA character with a suit top:

The tutorials I followed were the UMA content creation tutorials by Secret Anorak which can be found here. They utilize the content creation packs found from the github repository and as far as I can tell, I've gotten every item installed properly within Unity, followed every step with regards to the tutorial that I need to, and am familiar with Blender enough to know how to go about rigging and exporting models into Unity, so I'm very confused as to what's causing this problem.

I'm not sure if it's related to how unity is treating the imported Blend or FBX files skeletons, as I've heard that the rig needs to be set to humanoid or set up in a way that won't conflict with how UMA handles rigs themselves, but fiddling around with the rigs themselves of imported items wouldn't work either.

I'm not sure if anyone on this thread has had a similar issue in the past, but any help or advise would be very appreciated!

 

This is usually incorrect export parameters.
Please review the "UMAContentCreation.pdf" in the UMA folder. This has the correct export settings. Here is the latest version.

 

When you figure out where you went wrong, please mention it. No doubt someone else is going through the exact same or similar experience.

 

As it turns out, it was as simple as following the updated pdf that Jaimi provided and looking through the export settings. All that needs to be done in Blender is selecting the parts of the mesh you want to export along with the rig, going to file and exporting as an FBX, and ensuring that the export parameters on the right of the window follow this:

I then imported it into my unity project, went through the process explained above in the tutorials I provided, and the recipe above worked just fine when I placed them onto my character again!

I do have one more question though for a different process which still relates to UMA. I imported FBX files into another bloated project that utilized UMA after testing them in my fresh UMA-only project and found that one of the recipe sets that I have didn't work. One of the sets you saw in the screenshot above was actual clothing that was rigged to the character while another set I have was duplicates of the character meshes overlapping to act as an outline for use as a recipe. Both of these sets worked in the fresh, UMA-only project while the more bloated project gave me an error with the outline set only. Whenever I would run it with the outline recipe, it would cause the entire character to become invisible and the console would throw me this specific error:

I'm not sure if this is related to the structure of this more bloated project or if I'm missing something with regards to a material.

I really appreciate the help so far, I had a hunch it was something very simple that was causing me issues!

 

From the error location, it looks like the older project has an older version of UMA. I recommend to upgrade it to the latest version.

 

Hi, I try to add some hair slot on slot builder. But when I try to do I get some errors. Also I try to do it withhelmet but again I get the same error. Also I download models from mixamo.com for test purposes and use them without modifying. Should I modify it? If so, how? Thanks in advance.

 

Hi - did you fit them to the base character and rig them? They need a specific format.

There's a whole series of videos on the steps needed. Probably best to start with UMA 200 series, and work your way through. With Blender 2.9, the export parameters have changed. Please take a look at the UMAContentCreation doc I posted just a couple of messages up for the correct parameters.

Here's the video from the UMA 200 series that shows how to fit models to the UMA

 

Thanks for the reply. I will check them out.

 

Hello Jaimi

me again
I have a question
my problem is that, when my scene has more than a 30-40 people in front of my eyes, my game is reallllly slowing down
Do you know some good ways to improve this ? Because i would love to have 100 people walking around

 

The characters normals are drastically changed after being built. The right are the meshes with the corresponding materials and the left the UMA character. Is there any way to fix this?

 

When adding a wardrobe "Chest" it changes the texture for my legs.
Here is what the legs should look like:

But when I add a chest recipe to it I get this:

Any ideas?

 

It looks like the UV's mapping for the pockets are incorrect.
I am working with the creator to see if he can fix it or not.

 

Yes - typically that is caused by the UV coordinates being outside the 0..1 range, causing it to go out of bounds on the atlas.

 

Did you create your own material? If so, be sure to provide a placeholder texture for every texture you will be replacing, otherwise the shader compiler doesn't know about them, so it doesn't compile in the normal maps, etc.

 

Most likely you are running low on video memory, causing the card to swap in and out. You can manage this several ways.

1. You can tell the system to copy the render textures to regular textures on the generator. (Be aware that this causes a *stall*, and increased the generation time).
2. You can lower the atlas size, so less Video Memory is used.
3. You can use UMASimpleLOD which will dynamically lower the atlas size based on distance from the camera.
4. You can "preset" some common textures in the materials, so your overlays don't generate render textures. For example, if you have an armor that is never colorized, you can create it's own material and umamaterial for it, and it will not create an atlas for it.

 

I am using the Unity HDRP Lit Shader. Every materials uses the BaseColor, MaskMap, and NormalMap. Base and Mask map seem to compile fine, the normal map comes out yellow. I've included a runthrough of the process. Thank you for the help.

 

Hi,

I'm looking into using UMA for my game. The models and results are awesome, it's great.

But that's also the problem: it looks a little too good for my game, IE I need models with lower poly count.

So I was wondering if there's an easy way to change poly count within UMA using the native models? Or does UMA have options to reduce poly counts without having to export the models to Blender etc.

Thanks

 

The pink normal map is OK, it's caused by Unity converting the format to use the normal map.
But it's obvious from the picture that it's not applying. If you look at the generated materials on the renderer at runtime, do all the maps appear? Does it "fix itself" when you view it in the inspector?