UMA - Unity Multipurpose Avatar on the Asset Store!

Ok I think I sussed that out... You need to make sure you are actually using the 'Rig' part of your imported model, not the models top level prefab- bit obvious really...

 

I am getting 999+ 'Couldn't reset bone' warnings when applying my expressions clip to my new race.

I made the error output the hash aswell and I can see that 4 hashes are affected, but I think they might be related to the 6 extra bones I added to the standard UMA Skeleton.

I added an extra bone to LeftEye and RightEye and to Mandible I added Left/RightMaskMouth and inside each of those I added Left/RightMaskMouthAdjust...

So I am wondering if the UMA Skeleton is hard coded somewhere and that I need to manually add these bones to that list?

Or perhaps I added the bones incorrectly in some way in Blender?

Either way, both general animations and expressions animations all seem to play fine on my new race, but obviously I want to get rid of these errors....

 

Quick request for later if possible:

The ability to add slot folders to a recipe. Would add the slots in the folder similar to the slot/overlay library.

 

Basically just dragging and dropping a bunch of selected slot assets, right? I'll try to work on that this weekend.

I should probably tidy up and release my recipe-based character system. Not sure if it's appropriate to put in the main release though.

 

Ok I think I have sussed that out, it appears to be that if the resulting combined mesh does not contain anything that is weighted to the extra bones, you get that error, so in my case, the extra bones were for a face mask, and the errors went away when I added the slots for the mask to the recipe...

I'd still like to know if I can avoid the warnings, should I choose to not have the mask slots on some of my characters, for example?

And also is there anyway I can change the textures on an overlay at run time? For example my mask has a texture that is a certain face and I'd like if possible to be able to swap those for different faces when the character is generated. I appreciate that this would need scripting, but when I try to even swap out the textures in an overlay in a recipe using the inspector, it doesn't change (I see the asset picker box come up but selecting anything in that doesn't actually change the texture) and that makes me wonder if I may need to write some type of custom overlay script that allows for dynamic texture replacement?

 

It seems like if I set the UMAmaterial that my face-mask uses to be a) different to the rest of my body and b) not-atlased that I can swap the texture in the inspector when the scene is running. BUT when I do this the face-mask actually starts off *with* the atlassed texture from the rest of the body!
EDIT actually I was doing it differently I was changing the material texture directly on the material in the character root... So if I set my material to NO-Atlas it gets the texture atlas from the body and I still cannot change it...

Any ideas why that might be?

 

Is it the case that you cannot use Expressions and Facial DNA together? I am trying to set my characters Head size differently in my recipe and this works when I am not using any expressions, but when I use expressions the head just pops back to the default size

I have tried this also with the Example Serialized Expression Scene and the same thing happens there?

Is there something I need to do so that the DNA can get set and then the expressions applied over the top of that?

Also have I done something to offend people? I havent had any replies for ages...If I have let me know what so can apologise...

 

There haven't been many responses to questions in the thread lately. The gurus must all be busy at the moment.

 

No offense, hopeful is right, everyone is just busy with non-UMA stuff at the moment.

That should work, and has in the past, so it's a problem with your setup or a bug. Since the same thing happens in the example scene it's probably a bug. Does it still happen if you disable "Override Mecanim Head" in the Expression Player?

 

I´m curious about your approach on that. From what you´ve told briefly it sounded really promissing.
Cheers

 

Yep, I´ve been having a headache figuring out some stuff from Maya biding/skinning that was generating errors with UMA. Problem solved and wiki / Git issue updated with the solution =)

 

I was using the ExpressionsSlot to add the player actually (which doesn't have override Mechanim head enabled any way), but have now tried adding it directly but still no joy...

Also even though my animation has animation on Neck-Up-Down, that doesn't seem to play back- regardless of the settings...

@FernandoRibeiro I'd really like to try out the gist you mention but cannot find it, can you provide a link/give some more details on what files I am looking for?

 

Basically, it's derived from DynamicAvatar, and is based on recipes. There is a base recipe that makes up the characters looks (Slots/Overlays and DNA), and then the additional recipes for the control pieces -- basically what a character would look like without adding any clothing.
To this, I've added a dictionary of recipes that are keyed on an enum (WardrobeSlot):

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.      public enum WardrobeSlot
3.      {
4.        None = 0,
5.        Face,
6.        Hair,
7.        Complexion,
8.        Eyebrows,
9.        Beard,
10.        Ears,
11.        Helmet,
12.        Shoulders,
13.        Chest,
14.        Arms,
15.        Hands,
16.        Waist,
17.        Legs,
18.        Feet
19.      }
20.  

TextRecipes have been extended so the user can define the properties in the recipe editor:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.     public partial class UMATextRecipe
3.     {
4.        public string Hides;
5.        public UMACharacterSystem.WardrobeSlot Slot;
6.        public UMACharacterSystem.Sex Sex;
7.        public UMACharacterSystem.WardrobeSlot SuppressSlot;
8.     }
9.  

Hides is a list of regular UMA Slots that get hidden when this piece is added. (For example, a Gloves recipe (WardrobeSlot.Hands) might hide the UMA Slot "MaleHands").

WardrobeSlot specifies where the piece goes -- anything that gets added to a slot replaces what was previously there.

Sex - defines which "Base Recipe" to use when constructing the character.

SuppressSlot - A Wardrobe recipe can suppress another one -- This is different than hiding, because it works on other wardrobe slots. For example, a recipe for a dress could be added to the Chest slot, and it would hide the Female_Torso, and Female_Legs slot. But because the character might have pants in the WardrobeSlot.Legs, you would add that slot to this field, so the pants do get added either.

When a character needs to be generated, the recipes are merged in the enum order (so the eyebrows overlay the complexion which overlays the face, etc), ignoring any suppressed slots. Then, the recipe is scanned, and any hidden slots are removed.

Of course there are all the functions to do it all in code, and load/save the character from XML files.

I'll post a video of the character editor that I'm working on if anyone is interested.

 

That sounds fantastic! I was just going to ask about how to do conditional stuff and required stuff using the new recipe methods... Sounds like this is the answer!

 

Regards that second issue, where 'Neck_Up_Down' was not working, that was because my head mask was wrong, and I found I could use the UMA standard one without issue.

EDIT: Actually it was a combination of that and the fact I had the animation set to Additive...Switching to 'Override' , with a properly configured Head Mask, made the neck work- but unfortunately I need the animation to be additive

That hasn't solved the DNA issue though... Some parts of the mesh do seem to get scaled though, the character looks damn weird though!

 

Lol! Eli and I were talking exactly about this concept a couple weeks ago =)
The big difference is that we wanted to get rid of the string that you´re using for "Hides" and have SuppressSlot as an array that would englobe the "hides" concept.

 

This was the issue: https://github.com/huika/UMA/issues/14
I´ve updated the wiki to cover the solution. It´s a workflow change for Maya, so it won´t change UMA code itself.
Cheers =)

 

Ahh ok I thought you were refering to the 'Facial DNA not working when Expressions are used' issue... Any ideas about that?

 

Jaimi!! Very interested! Please do post a video.

 

So I thought I'd post a consolidated version of all my recent queries since its easier to have them all in one place...

1) The normals dont update on UMAs after they have been deformed by bone deformation (original post, ideas here and here, latest reply)
2) The settings for the 'metallic' part of a PBR overlay (i.e. texture 2additive) dont get preserved/saved in an UMA recipe(original post, possible solution) I just need to know here whether commenting out that line causes any problems and if it doesn't if it will be included in future versions of UMA?
3) If I have a recipe that may or may not contain meshes that have weights for certain bones, can I get rid of the 'Couldn't reset Bone' errors (since they seem to slow things down alot, even if they dont stop things working) (original post, follow up)
4) Can I change the texture of an overlay on a specifically generated UMA at run time? If so how (roughly)? (original post (at the bottom of here)
5) How can I use Facial DNA and Expressions together, I find that when I apply the expressions to an UMA generated from a recipe none of the facial DNA gets applied and it cant be changed. (original post, follow up, more)

 

I´ll probably only be able to get back to those after Unite =) but at least I´ll be back with a couple of good news as well.

 

I am having trouble with UMA 2 slot creation. UMA doesnt recognise the bones since unity automatically adds a prefix to all bones in the rig. So, the first bone (should be Global) is UMA_Male_Rig|Global, and so on...

So, how to i prevent Unity adding these prefixes?

 

I'm a bit of a noobie myself, but if you mean that the structure of the rig is UMA_Male_Rig > Global > Position > Hips etc then thats how it should be. If, however your bones are actually getting renamed (i.e. 'Global' has become UMA_Male_Rig-Global, position has become UMA_Male_Rig-Position) then thats another problem- you can check by dragging the imported object into an empty scene and opening it up...

If you are creating a slot for the UMA Male, have you tried importing with the rig set to 'copy from other avatar' and using the avatar from the UMA male in the FBX folder of UMA?

 

Thanks davidosullivan, but I solved the problem. I found this totorial here :http://uma.unity3d.com/wiki/index.php/Blender_export_to_UMA_2.0_plus_slot_creation

I was suposed to export from blender as 6.1 ASCII (the tutorial says 6.1 binary, but I assume its an error because there is no 6.1 binary) , and I was exporting as 7.4 binary. This way the bones doesnt get renamed.

 

Hello,

can anybody help me out: I have two uma chars. They should look from their position to the target position, but without "breaking their neck". So turn their head there in a natural manner.

Anybody done this and give me a Piece of code or a hint maybe?

Thanks a lot!

Firlefanz

PS: I found a Head Controller free Asset on the Asset store. I will try with this one.

 

Is there any way I can make UMADynamicAvatar use the 'Animator' component that is on the GameObject if there is one there already?

Its just I am using the amazing SpacePuppy open source frame work to string together events and triggers in my scene. This can take any game object and exposes the methods in its components and I'd like to trigger events on my UMA's animation controller- but I cannot set these up unless the component is already there.

If I add it though it doesn't get set up correctly when the character is generated

I'm using my own child version of UMADynamicAvatar actually so I could override a function in there without hacking the core. The function I need to override is in 'UMAGeneratorBase'- the 'CreateAnimator' function around 152, I need to change this

Code (CSharp):

1.  var animator = umaData.gameObject.AddComponent<Animator> ();

To this

Code (CSharp):

1. Animator animator;
2.             if (umaData.gameObject.GetComponent<Animator> ())
3.                 animator = umaData.gameObject.GetComponent<Animator> ();
4.             else
5.                 animator = umaData.gameObject.AddComponent<Animator> ();

But I cant work out how to override that in my version of UMADynamicAvatar

 

Hello,

my gameobject in the Scene has the umaData as a child. So this line of code seems to work:

UMAData umaData = gameObject.GetComponentInChildren<UMAData>();

How do I get the neck and the head bone for my head Controller? I tried:

segments[0].firstTransform = umaData.GetBoneGameObject("Head").transform;
segments[0].lastTransform = umaData.GetBoneGameObject("Neck").transform;

but both return null then. Can anybody give me a hint?

Thanks a lot and have a nice Weekend!

Firlefanz

 

Hey there, since the 2.0.5 update I get the following warnings:

Assets/Standard Assets/UMA/Core/Scripts/SlotData.cs(42,25): warning CS0618: `UMA.SlotData.slotName' is obsolete: `SlotData.slotName is obsolete use asset.slotName!'

Assets/Standard Assets/UMA/Core/Scripts/SlotData.cs(43,25): warning CS0618: `UMA.SlotData.materialSample' is obsolete: `SlotData.materialSample is obsolete use asset.materialSample!'

I'm not able to fix it :/ any suggestions? The actual code implementation seems to use asset.slotName / asset.materialSample.

 

SALSA lipsync beta workflow (1.2) for UMA 2 is now live. This update adds support for UMA asset files and introduces facial expression API controls.

http://crazyminnowstudio.com/posts/uma-lipsync-using-salsa-with-randomeyes/

 

Hey guys

I'm having an issue using a UMA pack on the asset store - the wolf armor pack (https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/22984).

Using the armor in a scene that has been loaded by another scene (e.g. using Application.LoadLevel) causes the armor to appear black. See attached UMA-Bad.png.

Using the armor in a non-loaded scene works fine (see UMA-Good.png). Any idea what may be causing this? Am I doing something wrong or is this a bug? I'm using Unity 5.2.2f1 and UMA2 version 2.0.5.

 

Not a lot of help i know, but Unity 5.2.2 Mechanim is seven shades of f@*ked up so it might be an issue with that- all my previously working animations, using UMA or not, are screwed...

Saying that, I have had an issue too with Expressions on UMAs not being able to get to the 'Neck' and 'Head', so I'm not sure if this is an UMA issue of a Unity issue

 

Hey everyone!

Has anyone created new animations that work with UMA?

Did you create a control rig in Maya or Max using the UMA rig or a different humanoid rig?

 

Any mecanim compatible animations should work with UMA. The only thing strange I've noticed is that the feet seem to be turned outward a little bit, and if your animation does this as well it compounds and your character can end up looking funny while walking/running.

 

Yeah, I've noticed that while the majority of animations I found look pretty good some have just enough issues that they may not be usable. I've been testing various methods of cleaning them up on the UMA rig in Maya and I'm not making much progress.

I'm starting to think that creating a control rig for the DefaultAvatar and animating that may be the easiest solution.

 

Yes I got few animations done in Max with a different biapec model, and they generally seem to be working fine.

 

@FernandoRibeiro Can you treat hair more nicely? Currently you seem to see it like an unwanted child. Perhaps it is just your screenshots that look awful but I expected something like the challenger hair. Is that possible if I use the right shaders? Can you show a video for that?

 

Just wanted to report back to you guys regarding my UMA avatar generator! It's really getting there!

If you want to follow it I have a thread for it here: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/wip-uma-master-thesis-player-avatar-creator.343331/#post-2360279

 

Can anyone tell me if it is possible to use wrinkle maps like The Challenger in the Blacksmith Unity demo?

 

@FernandoRibeiro Are you going to use a kind of skin shader that Unity uses for the Challenger and the Challenger hair shader? The only reason that makes me avoid buying your assets is that all your models look like Second Life or worse. If you could release your stuff with such nice shaders as in the forum you would get a lot more customers and make them really happy. I never know how easy it is to add new shaders, especially on a model that is generated at runtime and that is not really accessible in the editor as any "common" model. Showing us how good UMA can look would lower the barrier for newbies like me. Thank you.

 

Hi there!
From those images, looks like an issue with the reflection probes. if the loaded scene have a reflective object, does it's reflection work or is also black?

 

Hi there,
You're free to integrate and use the challenger hair shader with UMA, there's no restriction on what shader / hair technique is used for UMA content.
The content that we provide for free is just an example, I'm sure you're able to do better than that for your commercial projects

 

I've showed your project on my UMA presentation at Unite Brasil =)
Sadly Unite Brasil presentations were not being recorded, but I'll try to record a video presentation covering what I've spoke there.
Cheers and congratulations for your project

 

UMA can look as realistic and use as many complex shaders as any "standard" character, the biggest barrier UMA has right now is an outdated documentation. I simply can't spend as much time supporting UMA as I did when Unity Asset Store was sponsoring the project 2 years ago (UMA birthday is next month =DDD) and I was working full time on this and being paid for that =D
I do have plans on integrating Unity Labs hair shader (more flexible than the Blacksmith one) and skin shader but don't expect this to happen very soon because I have to give priority to my freelance jobs.
Cheers

 

You can use UMA PBR and that enables Overlays to use the new Unity 'Standard' Shader, and with that I think you should be able to use the 'Secondary Maps' (Albedo and Normal)- I believe that is what gives the Challenger skin such a good detailed look- along with a good primary Normal map (this or this might help). And of course the mesh for that character is alot more detailed in the first place... But for that you could use Fernandos High Poly Slots as a starting point or (heaven forbid) make your own race- then you can use any mesh, textures and normal maps you like... I really hope to make an UMA race creation tutorial in a few weeks time (along with some updated 3dsMax base files) because I have struggled through that process over the last few months, starting as a complete noobie, so I'm pretty aware of the confusions and pitfalls...

Hair wise I am not so sure what they did with the Challenger, but you can get some great (if static) results with UMA PBR using the Standard Shader set to 'fade' and with Textures that have alpha (like the Mixamo ones do)...

But seriously, I'd get stuck in and try things, its free after all. UMA is a great thing, and the community help here has been amazing...

 

This picture is not from Unite, it was from SBGames (they are happening in sequence, the same week and at the same place), but Unite vibe was the same. You can imagine how fun it was presenting at Unite Brasil =D

 

@SimoneDunzendorfer - I don't know if this is the sort of information you are looking for, but it sounds like it. What follows is a post made back on July 16 by Secret Anorak (who made an excellent UMA tutorial series):

Hi all, I have just been asked about using custom shaders with UMA2 and wrote a quick guide. I thought I might post it here in case anyone finds it useful:

Now you can use any Shader you like with much less fuss. I say less, since there is still a fuss to be had, but once you get into the flow it's pretty simple. Let's step through an example with unity's standard shader:

1. Create a Unity material and switch to the standard shader with specular setup (so we can use Diff, Norm and Spec maps). You can add maps here, but they will/can be overwritten later.
2. Right click in the project panel and create a new UMAMaterial, Give it a name and set if you want it to atlas with similar materials or not. (it will only atlas with overlays using the same shader)
3. Set your channel size to 3
4. Set the first channel to Texture, and it's property to _MainTex (these property names are found by digging around in the shader code)
5. Set the second to Normal Map, and its property to _BumpMap (yes you use standard normal maps since this is not UMA's special shader anymore)
6. Set the third to Texture, and its property to _SpecGlossMap
7. Right click in the project panel and create a new UMA Overlay Asset.
8. Set the texture list size to 3 and add your textures in the order you defined above.
9. Set the Material to the UMAMaterial you created in the last few steps.
10. Bam! you now have an overlay that uses the standard shader.

NB: Slots also have a material property that MUST match any overlay you add. so you will have to change the slot definitions too before you can add your new overlay to them.

Bit of a slog, but if you're not afraid of digging through shader code, this process should work with any shader.​

 

Our latest SALSA workflow (beta) for UMA 2 supports UMA.asset files and includes our new expression controller. This controller allows us to extend expression control for UMA 2 to our Playmaker and Cinema Director add-ons. The video below demonstrates a quick setup of a SALSA enabled UMA with dialogue swaps and complex facial expressions being easily added in a Cinema Director timeline. The Cinema Director add-on is currently in private beta, but will be freely available soon to SALSA customers.

UMA 2 workflow
http://crazyminnowstudio.com/posts/uma-lipsync-using-salsa-with-randomeyes/

Cinema Director workflow
http://crazyminnowstudio.com/posts/salsa-and-randomeyes-actions-for-cinema-director/

 

On YouTube the publisher shows a series of videos where he can be seen modifying the topology and baking out normal maps and polypainting the standard model. Unfortunately he uses UMA 1, I think, and it was said that the process has changed.
Are there video tutorials available for UMA 2 that show how to edit the model using ZBrush and re-texturing / polypainting him and baking out the new maps? Thank you.

 

Is it possible for users of an app to record their own messages and have the avatar move like this or does it all have to be done at the editor stage?

 

Can you post links to the videos you mean? I might be able to tell you what has changed in the process