VertExmotion [Released]

I wonder if you could give me a bit of advice?

I'm currently building my game character around a really great figure called Ariana.
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/characters/humanoids/ariana-character-118803

The author developed in Unreal engine and it is already set up ith bones/animations and for morphs for speech etc.

I'm looking for an easy way to offer character facial customizations: Mainly facial features etc.. basically sliders that a player could use in a simple character setup screen to make small adjustments to cheeks ears eyes etc..

From reading around I understand I basically have two option: Shader manipulation (Vertexmotion for example) or morphs (Polymorph). Either way, you have a product for it - which is great

Since I'm just a beginner I would just like advice on what you think would be the best way to do this. Or if it's even practical. I think it seems like a small task - but am I mistaken? character customization tools don't exactly seem to be a very common asset to find so maybe I'm not seeing a complexity issue?.

Also I purchased your spacesuit character and am very happy with it: I'm trying to merge it with Ariana to give her a spacesuit and so far it looks pretty good.


Thanks for great products!

 

You can use the unity API in a custom script to control the blendShapes of your character (Ariana), or you could control and mix them with BlendShape preset tool

I don't think that you'll be able to mix the Ariana character with the space suit
the skelettons of each characters won't be the same and the animations won't work properly.

Edit : OOps, it looks like the Ariana character use a face rig, there's bones instead of blendshapes... so BlendShapes preset tool won't work with it...
You should contact the author for more information about the face rig.

 

If you haven't yet, perhaps you should take a look at UMA? It seems in line with what you are looking for.

 

Thanks Kalagaan - once I sized up the spacesuit char the bones were pretty close so Im gonna have a go and hopefully it wont look too wierd

Thanks hopeful - I've been checking out UMA but the model import part seems a bit beyond my skill level. I will check out if its possible to find someone to do it for me for a reasonable price

 

Importing can be tricky, but once you get the settings right - just once - you're good to go. It's best to do something small and really pay attention to the importing. After that, you should be golden.

 

Hello fellow vertex motion users!
I have a strategy question on how to approach something:
I have a character that will sit on a sofa or a bed.
The bed should bend under the character, but this is less trivial than it sounds.

STRATEGY 1

I tried adding a grid of sensors and vertexmotion colliders to the bed, this works on paper but it leaves a lot of dead zones between vertexmotion colliders, making it look softer in some spots, harder in others.


I tried adding intermediate colliders, but it looked like they were fighting with the other colliders, making the mesh jump-deform as soon as another collider was triggered.

I tried with small vertexmotion colliders, but as soon as the sphere collider would cross their center, they reset...

STRATEGY 2

I tried adding to the bed a vertexmotion sensor with an inflate setting or a Y displacement setting, I then attached to the character's pelvis bone, this works for deformation very close to the body, but not to flex the bed generally:

as soon as I enlarge the sensor to grab more vertexes, to bend the bed more smoothly, the sensor triggers the deform too early.

Did anyone have a similar issue and how did you solve it?
Thank you!

 

I think that you have to use thre strategy 2 with a custom script.
You should change the sensor range (or the 'distance power' parameter) according to the distance between the pelvis and the top of the bed.
Have a look to the 'tire demo', the deformation is made with a lerp between 2 structures of parameters ('Tire ok' & 'Tire Flat'). in this demo I use a raycast to check the ground position, but in your case you could check if the pelvis is contained in the bounding box of the bed, and you could check the Y axis offet between the top of the bed and the pelvis position.

I hope that it will help you
If you still have issues you can send me an email.

 

Awesome! I am passing this to the programmer! You are surprisingly active, and very kind! Thank you again!

 

I just purchased this asset and I am wondering how to simulate softbody physics. I watched your demos and all the collision are made by animation rather than real physics simulation. I have a haptic device which can simulate touch, I am wondering can I feel different thing when I touch your softbody slightly or hardly.

 

@kalagaan

Hi. I'm using Universal Rendering Pipeline. Do you have any shaders that will work for that? I also tried creating my own after installing VertExmotion_ShaderGraph_5_13, and it offsets the mesh.



Thanks.

 

Hi, just recently purchased the asset, got a problem though. It seems that paint mode do not work for some reason.
Fill all / clear all works just fine.

I've tried both standard meshes and default ones without any luck.
Also debuged editor a bit, seems like ray (when doing RaycastAll in painting) do not hit the mesh collider for some reason. No idea why though. Collider is set to the default layer and positioned properly. And from the draw ray's gizmos rays seems to be intersecting the collider.

This is on 2019.2.4f1 & v1.8.5.

 

Just tested forcing convex on the mesh via editor, and the raycast hits just fine (triangles aren't found ofc).
I guess something is wrong with the non-convex mesh collider casting.

Edit: I've also tried enabling Queries hit backfaces and still doesn't work.

 

VertExmotion is not a physics base system, it mimics the physics with some custom script.
There's some samples for physics interactions in the package.
Have a look to "VertExmotion/Demos/interactions/Touch".

 

I didn't try URP yet, in HDRP you have to substract the camera position to the world vertex position to get it work, but not in LWRP, so maybe you'll have to add this offset in URP.
I'll do somes tests

 

I did somes tests with 2019.2.4f1 and it's working fine
Keep in mind that the paint tool works on vertices, only the vertices inside the circle will be painted.
Could you try to install VertExmotion in an empty project? maybe there's something wrong with the Physics settings.

EDIT : I found what's going on , the cube imported for the jellycube demo doesn't works properly... It was imported into a prefab with an older version of unity, and the mesh data have changed. If you use a standard cube it will work as expected

 

Hmmmmmm this is really weird. It works just fine in a newly created project, but doesn't in an older one.
Repro steps are the same. Any ideas what could be causing this?

Edit: I'll try re-importing the project / deleting library, maybe this will help.

 

Okay so re-importing didn't helped, as well as anything I've tried.

The only thing that works is to delete prefab / material and remake everything from scratch. (Which very frustrating)

Also, lack of the Ctrl+Z functionality on the most of the fields make any change really frustrating.
Please consider adding one, or at least go through the fields (sensors / colliders etc) and test if they work. (They do not) (Use Undo.RegisterFullObjectHierarchyUndo when changing sensors transforms etc instead of RecordObject, as that will fail to register transform changes)

Also, please expose the envelope radius as a field. Yes it is changed constantly due to imprecision / handles, but it can be just be rounded to 4 digits and that will avoid constant modification issue. Copying radius would be much more nicer that way.

 

Thank you for the feedback, I'll update the editor script

 

Hi, any updates on this? Thanks.

 

It works with URP like LWRP
You have to remove the camera offset from the HDRP sample.

Here a sample :



I'll add a specific sample package for UDRP in the next version

 

VertExmotion is now officially supported by Toony Color Pro 2

 

Hi, can this soft skin effect be achieved with VertexMotion ? ( NSFW )
https://twitter.com/NaughtySandbox/status/1182350286918242305

 

Yes, you can lock a sensor to another object, it will push the vertices of the skinnedmesh on collision.

 

Thanks.
Do I have to use VM colliders for this ?

The way I have it setup at the moment:
Painted Model with Sensor attached to a VIVE controller. Under sensor FX I have local displacement for XYZ at 0.03.
It seems to work but not without weird artifacts. One of them is to push vertices inside the model the VIVE attached sensor has to be pointing directly into the model on it's Z axis. Otherwise the displacement is all over the place.

How would you set it up ?

 

Could you send me a video of the problem? (contact@kalagaan.com)
It would be easier for me to understand the issue
Maybe you need a custom script, I could help you to achieve it.

 

I'm working on a new demo for the VertExmotion package.
It's a fish animated only with some sensors and a custom script.

 

Hi, how would I go about adding a hit force to an object?

EG I have a character running around and he can walk in to the object which is setup with a sensor & collider, and the object will wobble. I now want him to be able to hit the object and a similar (more violent) wobble to occur.
I would prefer to do this via script rather than add another moving collider.

Thanks.

 

You could generate a sensor on a collision callback (ex : OnCollisionEnter).

Code (CSharp):

1. GameObject go = new GameObject("Sensor_tmp");
2.             go.transform.position = pos;
3.             VertExmotionSensor s = go.AddComponent<VertExmotionSensor>();
4.             m_target.m_VertExmotionSensors.Add(s);

Then you can access to the sensors parameters (VertexmotionSensor.m_params) for creating your specific wobble FX.
You can remove the sensor from the list when the FX is done.
You should use a pool of sensors if you need to combine multiple interactions, instead of creating/destroying sensors.

I'll add a specific demo for this kind of behaviour

 

The object is a plant and it already has a sensor & collider attached. I get a nice wobble effect when a player brushes past it and was hoping for some kind of one shot call to add an impact at a certain point - some kind of fire and forget method call.
Is that available on the sensor? I can see squash & stretch etc.
Also do you have any detailed API docs? I purchased the dll version a couple of days ago and the only doc I have contains a lot of detail on shaders (which is great) but not much detail on functionality and API calls.

BTW congrats on a great tool, its helped bring certain areas of my game to life

 

No, there's no built-in way to create a one shot wobble, so you have to create one in a custom script.
You can modify all the sensors parameters by script.
Here the API :
http://www.kalagaan.com/VertExmotio..._vert_exmotion_sensor_base_1_1_parameter.html

I'm working on a new version, and I'll add a section about the API in the documentation.
The new version will include 2 more demos with custom scripts samples.

 

This demo will be available in the next package

 

Hello, @kalagaan. I'm having a bit of a problem with colliders.

I have a Genesis 8 character that I want to rig. Breast. thighs, everything. I also have very long hair that I also want to animate with it. Skirts, etc.

Everything seems to work fine as far as deformations go, but I want to keep the hair from clipping through the body, the skirt through the legs, etc.

I tried with colliders and collider zones... nothing seems to work.

How would I go about setting up proper colliders?

 

@kalagaan Hi, I just updated to the latest version, now I got a problem with the VertExmotion/Standard (Specular setup) shader. As soon as I add a Specular Map I get a shader error reportet and all following map slots disappear, just Albedo and Specular is there. Sliders disappear too.

 

Hello,
you could try to use the axis limits of the sensors to prevent the vertex to move in a specific direction,
If you still have issues, please send me a sample scene or screenshots of your settings (contact@kalagaan.com).

 

There's an update of the standard shader in the Addon folder.
It should fix the issue for unity 2018.2 and later.

 

OK, VertEx was working fine in 2018.2.9f1, then I created a new scene in 2019.2.5f1 and it didn't work. So I updated VertEx with the result the mentioned problem on Standard shader and now unpacked the VertExmotion_2018.2_standard_shaders from the Addon folder and still the same problem. Maybe this error message might help? :

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
UnityEditor.MaterialEditor.GetPropertyRect (UnityEditor.MaterialProperty prop, System.String label, System.Boolean ignoreDrawer) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/Inspector/MaterialEditor.cs:1114)
UnityEditor.MaterialEditor.GetPropertyRect (UnityEditor.MaterialProperty prop, UnityEngine.GUIContent label, System.Boolean ignoreDrawer) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/Inspector/MaterialEditor.cs:1106)
UnityEditor.MaterialEditor.ShaderProperty (UnityEditor.MaterialProperty prop, UnityEngine.GUIContent label, System.Int32 labelIndent) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/Inspector/MaterialEditor.cs:1187)
UnityEditor.StandardShaderGUI.DoSpecularMetallicArea () (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/Inspector/StandardShaderGUI.cs:324)
UnityEditor.StandardShaderGUI.ShaderPropertiesGUI (UnityEngine.Material material) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/Inspector/StandardShaderGUI.cs:158)
UnityEditor.StandardShaderGUI.OnGUI (UnityEditor.MaterialEditor materialEditor, UnityEditor.MaterialProperty[] props) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/Inspector/StandardShaderGUI.cs:142)
UnityEditor.MaterialEditor.PropertiesGUI () (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/Inspector/MaterialEditor.cs:1726)
UnityEditor.MaterialEditor.OnInspectorGUI () (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/Inspector/MaterialEditor.cs:475)
UnityEditor.UIElements.InspectorElement+<CreateIMGUIInspectorFromEditor>c__AnonStorey1.<>m__0 () (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/Inspector/InspectorElement.cs:501)
UnityEngine.GUIUtilityrocessEvent(Int32, IntPtr)

 

You mean the 3 axis constraints? Yes, I've playing with this. It helps a lot to make the whole thing look much better.

Still, I have VertexMotion on the breasts and on the hair. While both of them have their sensors configured, the hair still clip through the breasts (probably due to the whole motion thing). I was wonering what type of collider I should use to stop the hair from passing through the body.

 

That's weird,
I've tested with unity 2019.2.5f1 and there's no error
And all the demos work as expected, (with standard and standard specular).
Maybe there's something wrong with the shader update...
Could you try to reimport the 'VertExmotion/Shaders' folder ?

 

The long hair could be very difficult to animate with VertExmotion, you should try to use a bone system for the overall animation. VertExmotion sensors could be attached to the bone as an additionnal animation.
The collision system is not designed for this kind of interaction, so the only way to do it could be a custom script using some raycasts for detecting the body according to the sensor's position. I'll think about it

 

I reimportet already before.
But when I put a Specular or Metallic map in the Standard Shader of your character demo, the shader crashes too.
But there seems another problem on my side, when I use the Vertex Em Standard shader without metallic map, what works on your demo, wobbling still doesn't work here.

 

Ok, this is a weird bug!
I've probably missed a change in the built-in shader for this version...
I'll fix it asap

Edit : I found the bug, thank you for the feedback, a patch will be available soon.

 

Here the patch for Unity 2019 standard shaders.
You have to install the 2018.2 standard shaders package first.

I've submitted a new version (1.8.6 p1) on the assetstore, it should be available soon.
The standard shaders will be already applied if you download the new version from Unity 2019.

 

Thanks, these work fine now. Just wobbling still doesn't work, but I guess problem is on my side, because your demo works. Maybe you have a hint? I have characters with many materials and I just changed to VertEx shader on the materials that need to wobble. So I checked "Don't check shader compatibility". This worked fine before in 2018.2.9f1 from where I exported the characters and imported including the VertExmotion script and Sensors now to 2019.xx-

 

I've improved the collision system and I've added some parameters to the wobble FX.
It should not modify the way it works, but you could try to disable 'Maximize Collision' and disable the 'Friction' (0.0).

 

Ah sorry, maybe I used the wrong term, forgot that there is a collider wobble. I mean the normal wobbling of the vertices on accelleration change. Anyway, just solved it the long way, deleting VertExmotion component script and and adding it new. I can use the orig. sensors, so not too much extra work.

 

I thought that it was about the collision zone because it's the main modification I've made in 1.8.6
I'm glad that you found a way to fix the issue, but I don't know why the original component didn't work...

 

is it possible to use a gameobject transform to reposition specific vertices? like 8 gameobjects for cube.. all controlling the vertices at each corner without touching the other corners if moved?

 

You could do this with a custom script.
You add 8 sensors at each corner, and a script on each sensor with an anchor target.

Here a sample

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. using System.Collections;
3. using System.Collections.Generic;
4. using UnityEngine;
5. using Kalagaan;
6.  
7. public class VertExmotionAnchor : MonoBehaviour {
8.  
9.     public Transform m_anchor;
10.     public VertExmotionSensor m_sensor;
11.      
12.     void Start () {
13.         if (m_sensor == null)
14.             m_sensor = GetComponent<VertExmotionSensor>();
15.     }
16.  
17.  
18.     void Update () {
19.         if (m_sensor != null && m_anchor != null)
20.             m_sensor.m_params.translation.worldOffset = m_anchor.position - m_sensor.transform.position;
21.     }
22. }
23.  

 

Seems perfect.. I abit overkill from how I was going to do it but more flexible

 

Hi

I purchased VM yesterday and encountered a problem. Now, I don't know if this is a n00b problem or a bug, so please bear with me.

After assigning VM to an object (I tried a character with multiple materials and a capsule with just one material), I converted the material/s to VM mats and then enter paint mode.

Everything is right, I can save the new mesh, I can even add sensors, however, after I exit the paint (or)sensor tab, the initial VM mats go back to the standard ones.

If I enter back in the paint mode (ignoring the standard materials), all the vertex painted and sensors are still there.

Do you have any ideea what is wrong? I am using Unity 2018.3.xx and the latest version of VM .

Thank you