UMA - Unity Multipurpose Avatar on the Asset Store!

@ecurtz this is what I am talking about. @CaptainScience methodology is totally sound, what we would expect to be able to do. But its not going to work, unless s/he uses Blender 2.65 and screwed up Blender fbx exports aswell- since right now even the same models and rigs exported from the same blender file will import import into Unity differently to the ones that are already there- and if s/he goes through anything like my process s/he will waste days trying to work out why- and if it even matters.

So what I am saying is that the Blender fbx export issue is just another major and un-necessary confusion in a process that is already heavy with complication and out-of-date information.

And I still dont know if its an issue or not, I am still confused.

For example, if the differences in the fbx exports are not an issue, then could UMA on the asset store (i.e. the official version) contain Male/Female models, expressions etc outputted from the UMA_Blender.blend file, from the latest version of Blender, using the newer fbx 7.4 exporter- instead of the current 6.1 exported ones- without screwing everyone up?

If it could, then you should do it, if it couldn't then surely that's a problem.

So I am not saying there is anything wrong with the Blender files, its just UMA is a Unity asset and Unity cannot read Blender files so what Blender exports IS an issue, no matter how perfect the .blender files are- and the meshes and rigs that are in UMA right now, have been affected by Blenders screwey fbx outputs- and its those that you are expecting everyone to conform to.

Problem is that what is inside UMA in Unity from the asset store, is different to what a content creator will get if they export from the Blender file in Blender 2.75 using the fbx exporter (7.4) that they (Blender) are not dropping support for in the near future, and at the least this is confusing, and at the worst it risks content created without using old Blender and screwed up fbx exporting being incompatible to a greater or lesser degree with UMA's base, no?

 

Is the functionality of manually defining available slots and overlays (through adding them to the SlotLibrary and OverlayLibrary) still needed? It seems like we could get the same functionality by just loading and storing the assets at runtime.

 

I have gloves and shoes I bought from turbosquid that I want to put on the avatar. How can I put it on the avatar?

 

Its not a simple process I'm afraid, if you are looking for easy, I suggest you look elsewhere. I'm not meaning to be dismissive or un-helpful but it just sounds like you are expecting a 'one-click' or even 'one-day' answer to that question and it wont be (unless you don't want the gloves or shoes to deform as the character moves).

I tried writing a step by step for you here, but its just impossible, it needs to be a video.

There is stuff out there if you search for 'Creating Slots for UMA2' and you can also look at @FernandoRibeiro channel on Youtube but just be aware that alot of it is out of date, so you have to be a bit 'creative' in your interpretation and expect to go though a heck of a lot of trial and error (I mean days, even weeks as opposed to hours).

But have a go and post here, I'll try to answer any specific questions you have along the way...

 

I'm not 100% sure what the design decisions behind the Libraries were, you'll have to ask Fernando, but there are certainly alternate ways you could do it. The current system does provide a convenient way to keep the assets from being stripped out at build and allows you to have different Libraries in different scenes, e.g. I have two complete sets of the basic slots and overlays (with the same names) in my project so I can switch back and forth between testing the Legacy and PBR stuff.

If / when there is ever built-in support for content from AssetBundles that would be one obvious system for replacing the current scene Libraries. It's probably one of those features that isn't too high on anyone's list right now though.

 

At some point Blender will finish messing around with the FBX exporter and we'll provide some updated instructions for generating the content with it. In the meantime binary FBX export from Blender doesn't work (AFAIK it's never worked prior to this either). I just downloaded the current version and it exports identical files for Y up and -Y up, so clearly there are still some kinks with the process.

 

Can some one tell me how do i make my armor for UMA and make slot for it :/ i have made fbx but i dont know how to make DNA slot and that stuff ?

 

Unfortunately this rather underlines my point- that the base meshes and animations inside UMA that the DNA and expressions and stuff are all based on, and the files inside the Content Creator Pack, should all have been based on FBX exports that have been exported properly according to Autodesks standards- so that we, as users and content creators know, that they are right and not going to change.

A couple of weeks ago I was after a 3DS MAX content creation kit so I didn't have to learn Blender, but now after learning Blender and discovering all these issues I feel its far more important than that.

In order to create anything serious with UMA we simply have to know that it is based on 'solid' files that adhere properly to format standards- otherwise who knows what issues may arise in the future.

I am extremely concerned that when Blender does export FBX files properly this will cause unforseen issues when UMA itself is updated to use fbx files that *are* exported properly, or that to keep backwards compatibility with stuff people have made up to that point, it will be decided by UMA that it is required that people export flawed fbx from Blenders old exporter that UMA has currently used.

This is just not a solid foundation on which to try an build something and I am VERY worried about it.

Really what needs to happen, right now, by using something that works properly already, is that UMA is updated with fbx files that are generated properly and any issues that this causes with existing DNA or expressions etc are solved now. The longer this is left unresolved, the more people there will be who have created things with UMA who maybe affected one way or the other.

If this means that people cant use Blender to create stuff, in the short term, until these fbx issues are resolved, surely that is better than people creating stuff with Blender that might end up broken when things are finally fixed and updated? By then it maybe too late, ones's app may be in the app store and one could run the risk of breaking it by updating it...

I just need to know that, if I make stuff with UMA as it stands, if/when UMA is updated with fbx files that are correct whether what I have created will still work, and/or if UMA will be taking the path of not changing anything- if updating the core UMA files with correct fbx doesn't work- and therefore requiring people to use a non-standard format in the long term.

I just need to know where UMA stands on this so i can make a decision if that is a risk I want to take.

 

@davidosullivan, can you grab an old version of Blender and export the fbx files needed?

 

I can do that but I seriously dont think that is any way to develop things in a sound, forward looking manner.

@ecurtz have you reported the Y-Up export bug in FBX Binary to Blender? They are pretty quick to respond, though so far they have said they are not fixing anything I have reported, normals on blendshapes, non deform roots getting incorrect meta data etc. You might have more luck with this though, its pretty explicit...

 

The current ASCII exporter seems to work fine for UMA content. To the small extent I've researched it, my understanding is that the binary FBX support is very much a work in progress, and the axis settings are just one of many things that aren't functional (none of the binary versions I exported for testing even display in Autodesk's FBX converter, while the ASCII one is fine) i.e. as far as your concerns for compatibility the current, working ASCII files are valid Autodesk "approved" FBX files and the non-working binary ones aren't.

 

Which version of the Autodesk FBX converter are you using? The latest one I can find is 2013, and this is pre fbx7.4 (the binary that Blender exports) so its not surprising that doesn't load it. Also if you use that converter to convert the Blender exported 6.1 FBX to binary, you'll find that it is all messed up- which suggest there are things wrong with it.

I have been speaking with Bastien Montagne, the Blender dev for FBX and this is what he said about this:-

Please do not bother with 6.1 in any way - differences between 6.1 and 7.x formats are rather huge. Further more, 6.1 is only kept 'as is' for some time until it gets definitively useless to everyone, it is by no mean developed nor maintained any more.

... iirc you'll get some rather unexpected results with 6.1 exporter.
​

That is why I am so worried about it. That and the fact that in my testing of the Blender 6.1 export with my own files, the output from Blender is waay out of whack compared to what 3DS MAX exports when you export 6.1 ASCII, among the issues are the screwed up miniscule scaling issues, which are what got me on to the forum in the first place.

 

With regards to UMA PBR, in the description it says this needs color space set to Linear, but Linear doesn't work on Android/iOS... All I'd like to do really is just use the Unity Standard Shader, so I am just wondering if that will work? What wont work if I don't have the color space set to Linear?

 

Hi there,
All PBR content and scene lighting has been calibrated based on color space set to Linear, you will be able to test Gamma space and check the visual differences. If you target mobile devices, you will be able to use Unity Standard shader and Gamma space but will need to handle lighting adjusts and suffer from camera rendering effects limitations.
This is a Blacksmith demo scene using Gamma and Linear space, without proper adjusts. The difference will be smaller on UMA example scenes but will still be present.

 

I'm using FBX Converter 2013, which appears to be version 7.3 (Autodesk never refers to anything by this version number as far as I can tell, but if you open it with a hex editor you can see it.) It actually will convert those Blender exports, even though it won't display them and if you convert them it shows the changes in the axis export settings, so I guess it's probably actually be a Unity import bug rather than a Blender export bug. I don't own any Autodesk products so I can't really test beyond seeing how Unity and FBX Converter handles them. If Max or Maya lets you change the export axis you can check if that also fails on import and submit a bug to Unity.

I can't speak for Fernando with regard to the art side, but from the coding side all of the current UMA content is designed as +Z forward and as long as it's still possible to create that from Blender, Maya, and Max I don't see an urgent need to spend time on doing conversions in code. If it gets to the point where only -Z forward content can be imported and Unity hasn't fixed it then we'll deal with adding some more smarts to the Slot Builder at that point.

 

How do I let a player save any changes for their avatar that they used for their scroller?

 

What I did is pulled it all out, and saved it in XML along with everything else about the model (the different recipes that make them up, the different colors, etc.)

 

@ecurtz Just wondering if you have any answers regarding the 'Feet moving towards hips when knees bend' issue- what should happen is that the Hips move towards the feet- and this is not an issue with my race- it happens with the UMA race too, but ONLY when the animation is applied to an UMA generated character, not the original fbx.

How to reproduce:-
1) Download and unzip the attached no-test@skinning-test.fbx animation and import it into Unity
2) Set the rig to Humanoid and the animation to 'Loop Time'
3) Find and open the UMA Locomotion animation controller asset (or create a new one) and drag the Skinning test animation asset into it- make sure its either the default animation or that there is a transition to it..
4) Create a new scene and drag the Male_Unified.fbx into the scene and drag the Locomotion Animation controller into the Animation Controller slot in the model in the scene.
5) Press play.
What you will see is that the animation moves the model and its feet stay roughly on the ground. I am not concerned about the feet not being perfectly attached to the floor, this is an armature discrepancy that doesn't happen with my race, so you can ignore that. The point is the Hips move towards the floor.
6) Open the Crowd Scene and make sure that the same animation controller that you just used is referenced in the Animation Controller of the 'UMA Crowd' asset.
7) Play this
What you will see is a very different animation where the feet of the characters move up towards the Hips of the UMAs rather than their hips moving towards the ground.

What I think is happening here is that the UMA generated characters 'Hips' are being set to only receive 'Rotation/Scale' animation and not location as they should (Hips should move relative to Global/Position bones).

So I am just wondering if there is a setting I can set, or a tweak I can make in the code so that I can make the animation retarget to the UMA generated characters in the same way it successfully retargets to the Male_Unified.fbx asset itself. I am sure this would be a great help to people using animations from different sources, as opposed to creating animations from scratch. It is possible in Unity to retarget animations between differing armatures (as you can see from the first example) and I think it would be a good idea if UMA did not force people to give up this functionality.

 

UPDATE: I have just discovered that when I go through steps 1-5 but using my own 'Jeans' fbx, something similar happens as with the UMAs. To make this animate I need to import that rig be humanoid, but then on the game object itself I need to set the Avatar slot use the same avatar as my character. BUT, and heres the interesting bit, if I leave 'Apply Root Motion' unchecked, the Jeans animate in the same incorrect way the UMA's do (i.e. the feet move up towards the Hips) however if I check 'Apply Root Motion' underneath the Avatar slot, then things animate correctly.

Does that shed any light on things?

 

I can't really look at it right now, but have you tried the checkbox for baking the Root Transform Position (Y) data into the pose in the animation import settings? Alternately I'd try changing the Root Bone of the SkinnedMeshRenderer to the Hips after the UMA is active in the scene and see if that fixes it.

 

"Unity 5" has a problem with 7.4 Binary. Not UMA or Blender. Currently Binary is the best solution to importing into Unity 5. I don't see what's so hard about changing the FBX export settings from 7.4 binary to 6.1 ascii. It's a bit of a nuisance sometimes, but that's what Unity requires.



Please see my export tutorial for blender:

http://uma.unity3d.com/wiki/index.php/Blender_export_to_UMA_2.0_plus_slot_creation

Tested with Unity 5.0 UMA 2.0 and Unity RAW Mocap Data animations.

If your exporting custom animations, you'll have to set up Blender properly to export them for Unity. It's more than just switching FBX versions I believe. Some documentation/support on that would be nice. Please feel free to add to the wiki if you find a solution.

Unity "can" read blender files. Just place a Blend file in your unity asset folder. It will extract the model and materials, but I haven't tried it with UMA.

 

Hello!

I'm back again and trying to create my custom race again. I've ran into a problem when there are two materials on one mesh and am unsure how to set both materials for it with UMA.

In this example, I have the eyes and the rest of the head attached to one "head" mesh. The eyes and the head have different materials though. Is it possible to set both materials easily with UMA or should I just find a way to use one material for this?

 

Yes, that's not a problem. Just create different UMAMaterials for them, and assign them to the specific slots and overlays. Some of my models have up to 3 different materials on them (Hair/Skin/Clothing)

 

Different materials in the source model is an issue though. UMA 1 just ignored this and put everything into the slot, but UMA 2 keeps the materials separate, but doesn't actually do anything with the extras. It's been requested that the Slot Processor go back to the old behavior, but that wouldn't work for you in this case. The simplest solution for now would just be to export the head and eyes separately and make them into two slots, each of which can have its own UMAMaterial.

 

Yes - sorry about leaving that out. They would have to be exported separately. Seems like we could add the ability to select which mesh from the model is used in the slot processor, and then it would solve that particular issue.

 

It's not really much effort for us to change the way we work with this, using an extra slot for the eyes seems like the most elegant solution in our case Figuring out why exactly that was happening was the confusing part, took me a few hours just to realise it wasn't working because of the use of two materials!

 

Is there a way to know that uma recipe is loaded?
My specific problem is that I find nose too early (and if recipe loads smaller character my camera is too high and vice versa)

 

Theres an updated event that is fired by the generator. Or you could just find the bone every time in your camera script.

 

Thanks!

 

The width/height parameters on the OverlayDataAsset don't seem to be used when compositing the overlays together. Is this expected? I was assuming these could be used to stretch the texture to fit. Is that an incorrect assumption?

 

Hi there!
Joen, me and Eli were just discussing about ways to improve Overlay Rects today.
Both x, y, width and height are used, it's worth checking the PDF manual at page 10, it explain those values.
Ps: At least one point where we use width/height is when serializing/deserializing characters, so that if the texture size is reduced in one library, the offset can be proportionally adjusted as well.

 

Thank you - I was trying to figure out how to stretch a too-small texture, I see this isn't the usage for that. What really threw me was no matter how much I changed the rect parameter on an existing asset, nothing seemed to change, even though it showed it in the inspector.
Creating a brand new overlaydataasset worked though, and was simple enough.

 

What is the difference between the head_head slot and the face slot? I don't remember a face slot in 1.x. It looks like only one or the other is ever used and they appear (?) to be the same thing. Since moving to UMA 2 it looks like I am using the face slot for my generator, and it is working fine - is there a purpose for the head_head slot? Maybe it was renamed simply because face made more sense?

 

Isnt head_head just the empty head without nose, ears and so on and the fase is complete?
Might be completely of though : p

 

Virror is spot on.

The head_head is part of the cutout multi mesh face where you can replace ears, eyes, nose and mouth.

 

Thanks. All this time I didn't realize that - my char creator was working perfectly until i hit a case just now. Now that I know that, I understand both approaches, and I will need to do a bit of refactoring..

 

@FernandoRibeiro - voting Yes for asymmetry for arms and legs...think prosthetics, women's clothing / accessories, gauntlet on one arm and shield on the other, casts or splints on an injured limb, a falconer's glove, etc.

 

Is it possible to create a common style of an article of clothing, say 5-pocket jeans or a polo shirt that have the denim or mesh appearance but allow the color to be set at runtime, so we don't have to have 12 different shirts that are identical except for color?

My thought is to allow player to "equip" the shirt or pants style, then choose the colors.

 

Sure it is. It's a little easier if you use the latest version from GIT, but the mechanics of actually changing it are the same. Each overlay has a color, and that color can either be directly on the overlay, or a "shared color". I use Shared Colors for all of this (so I can set the skin/hair/eyes, and they're easy to find). If you're using Recipes, it's even easier to setup.

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. void UpdateColors ()
3.  {
4.     foreach (UMA.OverlayColorData ucd in umaData.umaRecipe.sharedColors)
5.     {
6.         if (ucd.HasName ())
7.         {
8.             if (ucd.name == "Hair")  // Probably should put colors names in a dictionary, and pull out, but it's an example.
9.             {
10.                 ucd.color = HairColor;
11.             }
12.         }
13.     }
14.    umaData.Dirty(false,true,false);
15. }
16.  

My work flow is as follows:

Edit the recipe
Create a Shared Color in the editor, name it
On the overlay, select "Use shared color" and select the shared color I want to use.
Save.

Then, after the recipe is loaded, call the UpdateColors function to set them to whatever they need to be.

 

Currently it requires some skinning work. However I'm making progress on a 3rd party tool to help you do this. It is directly aimed at having meshes that fits well or reasonably well at the uma base meshes.


The Troll's pants and tunic is made by Teila with Marvelous Designer. My tool successfully skinned it for uma and converted it into slots and overlays. The tool still needs some work, but after fixing a number of bugs processing the tunic the Leggings processed cleanly with no human interaction.

It should be able to process stuff like shoes, as long as you take care to align them manually to the uma character in the editor.

It's still far from a finished shelf product, but it's getting there.

 

Hi there! Sorry taking long to answer, I didn't noticed your post before. I've ended up using symmetry for the first version of the modular body, but this can be changed later =)
You can check our progress on modular content here:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/uma-modular-armor-sets.354192/#post-2299079
Content is still under approval process, we will be including new packs in the following weeks.

 

I had gotten used to importing the models on UMA. Next I'm going to make a customized face using the fusion code for the Kinect.

 

This makes me wonder, would I... could I use this to bring in a custom character and then hide the base character mesh?

 

I have an old prototype of a mesh combiner that supports a special occlusion set that this tool could help generate. However it would still need some serious logic to handle steep viewing angles, proper occlusion is far from trivial. So I think the answer is that occlusion might be version 2 or so.

 

Hi everyone, just wanted to let you know that Inventory Pro now officially supports UMA 2 . More info at: http://devdog.nl/product/inventory-pro/

P.S. Inventory pro is still 20% discounted, I've already submitted the next version, which contains no discount. So if you're interested in buying now might be time ^^

 

The problem with using FBX 6.1 from Blender are numerous...

First up its old, the latest fbx is not ascii, 6.1 is from 2013 so by using it we are using an out of date format, which is asking for trouble.

Secondly the size of the files generated by 6.1/ASCII are apprx 3x the size of 7.4 binary.

Thirdly, the Blender dev who is working on the fbx part of Blender has himself told me not to use the 6.1 version. It will not be being developed any further and will ultimately be dropped. Surely we should not be relying on a broken export option, that will not be developed and is scheduled for termination?

Lastly, in all my experiments, exporting 6.1 from Blender results in files which have their scale screwed up- i.e. they are really small. The reason I conclude this is because I compare the same files exported from 3DS Max and since Autodesk make both Max and the FBX SDK the output from MAX can be considered to be standard.

Its not very easy to make a comparison however since Blenders fbx import is also screwed up so you dont know where the issues are happening necessarily.

The bottom line as I have said repeatedly, is that UMA- if it is going to be based on fbx files imported into Unity- should be based on fbx files that are exported properly in the first place.

However I am interested to know that Unity will read .blend files. If thats the case then why not just use the .blend files directly and just forget about all the fbx perlaver?

 

Unity doesn't actually read .blend files - you have to have blender installed, and it will use blender to create FBX files for you.

http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/HOWTO-ImportObjectBlender.html

 

Hi there @davidosullivan , am I understanding correctly that you're willing to help providing all MAX FBX files, so they can be used instead of the blender exported ones?

 

Uma Mounting Bones;

in the 4.x version of uma i was able to manipulate the race prefab to add (empty game objects) bones in the hands, waist, and back for equipping and equipping props. i could also add scripts Final-IK Full Body Ik And initialize it manually. i cant figure out how to implement a similar system in 5.x, I tried adding bones through the t-pose configuration scene and extracting it and nothing. one way i was thinking would be to hard code the instantiate of the mount points. and change the transforms in a script like capsule collider slot example. but i think this could get messy. especially when i start adding final-IK scripts.
for example: in the equip-able items script it would search the uma's skeletal hierarchy for the parent bone instance the prop to it set the proper position and rotation.

in 4.6 if i had a sword equipped for example: there was prop that contained a trail render-er for effects such as trails and fire. and a dummy sheathed object. when drawing or sheathing one object is activated while the other is deactivated. All i did was add the mounting game objects to the race-prefab hierarchy and adjust the rotation and position E-Z. and when the weapon was equipped the prop and dummy were parented to the proper mount. then zero the position and rotation.

Any Advice would be greatly appreciated.