procedural character generation

I really don't have anything to say other than I love watching the progress of this project. Good stuff!

 

=D Thanks Not_Sure!
Your post at "Hows my Forest and what does it need??" put a smile at my face

 

And it´s important to say you were post #100 =DDD

 

Haha, same for me

 

Wanted to show a bit of my workflow modelling hair.
I´m starting with particles to get hair shape and flow, and after that I instantiate mesh modules around the reference splines.
For now, I´m trying to generate all hair texture based on 3d renders, to get more freedom and control. The same is being done for facial hair.
It´s weird to see hair mesh without transparency

 

cool your using Blender

 

Fernando if you need hairs in 3d package only to render them, why not using Zbrush fibers, they allow very nice hair results.

 

Hi there janpec!
I still didn't tested zbrush fibers, but I've considered this possibility.
The benefit with Blender hair is that it already generate splines that might be used for future directx hair shader/tesselation.

In this case, I'm, using those splines just as a guide, but they might be useful.
The drawback with blender hair is that I can't bake it like I bake normal meshes. I have to render from a camera view, or lose all the nice effects and transform it on ugly cilinder meshes (If anyone know how to handle this limitation, please tell me =D )

 

I love blender =D
Even if I were rich and could buy 10 xsi licenses, I would still do a lot of stuff in blender, It's simply faster and more efficient for some tasks.

 

hahahah that's the most important thing i beleave... work with things you love....btw (i don't like blender cause i never get used to it)

 

I like Blender too. I've tried the student Maya and could never get the hang of it. For my little purposes, Blender is excellent. And best part, it's not limited like the student versions of Autodesk programs are, and it's totally free. But I can never get the hang of hair.

 

i use blender because i can find Animators at Blender Artists

 

I´ve started with 2.49b, it´s interface was awful, nowadays blender is a lot more user friendly, but it´s not it´s strenght for sure

 

If I remember well, I´ve started learning Hair rendering in blender here: http://vimeo.com/7971717
Hope it helps!

 

I´ve tried using kinects for motion capture using iPiStudio, it can bring good results

 

true but the characters i want are stylized so the animation would have to be key framed but the face could be motion captured

 

Oh, got it
For facial expressions I´ve tested faceshift:

 

is faceshift expensive?

 

800$/year for freelance license.
I´ve been using the beta for my first tests, but I might change my approach for the final product. As lipsync must be custom made for each project, I might give acess for users to include their own data.
For facial expressions that can be used in many different cases, I´ll probably handle with hand made animations.

 

in that case ill find another software for facial Mo-cap

 

Hey
Kinect For Windows 1.5 has a Face Tracking SDK, take a look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE-gftsaXb8
There´s just not enought data as faceshift gives.

 

look i might scrap the facial mo cap and just get free mo cap data and have the animators work with that and do facial animation

 

Hey! Hi there everyone =)

Here´s my second video, quality got a bit better this time -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E400OVxBjT0

 

Really cool!

 

vouaw .. amazing work!
maybe it would be interesting to allow greater disproportions. Everyone does not want to comply with the correct proportions.

 

Thanks =D

 

It´s a bit harder because bigger body deformations may result in huge animation variation if not using IK when interaction with the world. Even using IK, it might generate strange poses
I can probably give aditional 50% range, but in the end, any end user can edit the min/max limit for each slider freely.
It´s also important go note that I´m still not using all possible sliders, I might be able to create a lot more, without performance loss.

 

Performance is still nice, even without LOD.
Stable 60fps on modern machine.

 

yes ok, I understand the Difficulty.
Anyway good luck for the future! possible variations are already fantastic!

 

So...do you have a release date planned yet?? I can wait

 

Such an exciting, excellent project. Keep up the great work.

 

Yep
It would be difficult for the end user (Developer) to handle extreme variations considering no acess for IK on unity indie for example, so I´ll try to keep it simple but flexible for everyone.
But this don´t mean I won´t be able to generate specific solutions for unique cases, those can be handled using different approaches.
Edit: Those would have to be handled as an service outside of the asset itself

 

Not yet! The same for the price, Can´t tell how much it will cost right now, but I´m considering working on a free version too.
One thing that sure will happend: I´ll keep adding new content after the release date, and as standard, all upgrades are for free.

 

Thanks a lot = )))

 

nice besides i know im going with a toon look so i have to model and rig the main charters in blender but i might use your version for extras

 

Do me a personal favor, do ten backups right now! Keep them in separate locations...

I've just seen to many accidents on promising systems like this...

 

Com Mecanim, está chegando na época perfeita! Muito bom, boa sorte; se vender na asset store, já tem aqui um comprador heheh

 

Hi, this is one of the most awesome works i've seen!!!
I want to ask how did you make the morphing body system in unity, i need to do something similar in my game (sorry if already asked).

 

Hi there!

It has been a while since my last post but be sure I'm working on this project more than ever.
I'll be able to update you all with more news soon

 

Yes, but... How did you make working morph targets for the body in unity? I hope it's not megafiers...

 

Hi there lmgginspace, thanks for the kind words
I've developed my own solution to handle body variations and cloth shape projection. As you can see, the performance is good enough to handle up to 100 unique characters on a modern computer.

I'm sorry not updating this thread as much as I usually do, I'll be able to give some big news in the next days.

 

Thanks a lot for answering!! Sorry for the PM, I though you missed my reply.
I need that kind of functionality, and the only way i know is paying a lot for that asset i said in last post. I Think i should investigate more about developing a custom morph solution.

Looking forward for more awesome improvements of your project, best wishes!!

 

I have to say it again, it's a very impressive project, looking foward to this.

 

Hi there,

As promised, I´m back with big news:
I´m working with the asset store team to bring a more complete avatar system.
For now, there´s not much more I can tell, but i´m very happy with how this solution is evolving! =D

 

Awesome!

How much is this going to cost? Sorry Just curious

and Will we be able to use our own models?

EDIT: Oh and will it be pro only? or will it work with Unity Indie?

 

Humm, looks like we have even bigger news:

It will be for free =D
I´m working together with Unity Asset Store to bring you all a free solution, acessible for everyone.
Everyone -> Unity free, Unity PRO, IOS, Android, Linux, Web player... We are working hard to make it work in all plataforms.

 

This is so AWESOME!

Thank you for your reply!

 

Holy #$%, FREE?!?!?! CAN"T WAIT

 

=D We are working hard to get something really nice for you all

 

You should thank Caitlyn for that