UMA - Unity Multipurpose Avatar on the Asset Store!

Quick question: Will the female character geometry (I'm not talking about textures) for UMA ever be updated to be a bit more AAA looking?

Right now the male model is pretty good but the female isn't really up to snuff when it comes to proportion or anatomy. Probably the biggest problem is the UMA Female has what looks like a "Spine Crack" that is completely unrealistic and throws off the silhouette pretty bad.

 

Changing the base mesh is a tricky proposition because you would have to modify every slot that covers the area as well. Are you sure it isn't something that could be fixed via the adjustment bones?

 

As @ecurtz said, UMA will aways be free and open source =)
After UMA has launched a ˜18 months ago, the first thing I've considered was doing a kickstarter for generating a huge amount of content, the crowdsourcing would be necessary to pay talented artists to produce high quality content in a short amount of time (something I wouldn't be able to do alone). Few weeks later I've been invited to work on a very special project, and since then I was not able to spend the same amount of energy on UMA as I did before. It's amazing that both @UnLogick @ecurtz are keeping UMA at full speed and you guys should thank them everyday =D
Considering documentation, I've spent a long time recording video tutorials, but it definitely wasn't a great strategy, as they become outdated really fast as UMA keeps improving and code receives many improvements. I just didn't had any experience with documentation at all when I started UMA, I was not even very proficient with coding itself, @UnLogick helped a LOT on guiding me through a more efficient code structure for UMA. It's clear that at some point we will need to handle documentation and updates in a more strategic way to deliver UMA as a product.

I won't be able to guarantee anything, especially because my wife is pregnant and in about one month I'll have a little baby in my arms =) but I'm eager to bring UMA to the next level. Again, it's thanks to @UnLogick @ecurtz that UMA 2.0 is arriving with full support to Unity 5, I hope I'll be able to help more in the following months.
Cheers = ))

 

Nope, the anatomy of the lower back (upper butt) for females (and to some extent males) is wrong. It looks like he did it to save some polygons at the expense of looks.

When modeling that portion of the human body you have to modify your edge loops to follow the muscle/fat that exists at the bottom of the spine gap and before the, uhh, butt crack (believe me I have modeled tons of humans). Essentially the entire inner upper butt is missing on the UMA female and adjusting the butt parameters really on effects the lower or middle butt.

Females have more fat in that area than men but, presuming that you are a man, run your hand down your spine, when you reach the base there should be at least a flat area (it might stick out a bit depending on your BMI) where your lower back is. That area is what is missing on the female model. The spine gap just continues on into the butt erroneously.

 

Yep, I agree. This "Spine Crack" is really bad and it's also visible on male avatars. This is actually something I might be able to solve on the Mecanim neutral pose.

Edit: Ahh, you're talking about the topology? because most of the silhouette could be solved with correct posing on mecanim avatar.

 

Hmm so you think it might be a deformation problem? If the silhouette can be improved at all I am all for it. I need to reopen your zbrush examples to see if the crack is there in the topology (I do believe it is because I once attempted to rectify it in zbrush but found the edge flow didn't allow for it.

BTW, im not trying to "hate" on your work. I think UMA is awesome, but I just personally wont be able to use it unless I can figure out how to get my own models to work with it or some of the issues I have with the topology are addressed.

You don't have an animation rig for UMA do you? I have tried skinning my characters to the uma skeleton but it becomes a bit of a mess. With an animation rig (as in I am not messing with the bone values themselves) it would be easier to skin to your rig.

 

This image shows what I am talking about.

 

It's fine, this is almost a 3 years old base mesh already (old thread is from Oct, 2012) , from the middle days of UMA development, so I'm aware of many problems on topology, skinning and proportions =)

I provide the blender files here: https://github.com/huika/UMA-Extrafiles
Changes to topology can be handled to some degree, if they keep the body volume and overall skinning, this way we don't break existing content.
If you would like to propose any changes to base mesh, send me a pm and I can check if those changes are viable.
Cheers

 

Won't a normal map be enough to handle that in most cases? The extra vertices in this area might not be worth into a 7k model. This can be included on the high poly version. (I was actually thinking you were mentioning something else, the exaggerated lumbar curvature)

 

Oh yes! Change that neutral pose! In my opinion, that pose is the main reason UMA doesn't look great most of the time, no matter what you put on them.
Maker them stand proud, something like this:

 

You're talking about idle animation, this is something super easy to change, we just had to use the one Unity provided.
What I was mentioning about the mecanim neutral pose is something to fix the neutral bone structure for retargeting.
Idle animations can tell a LOT about the character personality, so that's something developers need to choose themselves, UMA only provides very neutral (and ugly) placeholders. I agree that for convincing people to use UMA, we should use more interesting base animations.

 

Yes, presentation is very important, that's why I think it should come by default with a "cool" looking idle, especially if is super easy to change.
But it's just my opinion, I'm sure you know better what to do

 

I agree with Fernando. I don't like that female idle above. It isn't neutral and instead makes her look rather posed, and posed to attract attention. Idles are specific to the character. A peasant wouldn't pose like that.

Fernando, congrats on your new baby! How exciting and wonderful for you and your wife. Enjoy those early years...they go so fast. My youngest turns 15 next month and I would give anything for one day with her as a baby again....although not as a two year old or the potty training years.

 

Hey =)
I have to say unity handled the skin shader quite well (Unity Labs), I still need time to study it, but it follows most of the Next-Generation Character Rendering guidelines (http://www.iryoku.com/stare-into-the-future).
I'll try to test it with UMA.
Here's a nice spec of the head.
Cheers

 

Lol, just noticed they are using leather normal map texture as skin micro detail =D

 

So it's no coincidence the skin in the pic above looks like leather?

 

It actually looks pretty good on final composition, but there are some nice micro detail textures here http://www.surfacemimic.com/gallery/

 

So when do these PBR skin/clothing textures go into github?

 

Well, 7k poly model is 3 years old. Nowdays we have 2,5x faster GPU. I mean even definition of low poly is changing all the time and what was high poly 5 years ago is nowdays considered low poly. Today is quite common to have 30k poly characters in LOD0 and use LODs.

 

How do you create recipe fragments, and add or remove DNA from the fragment?

 

Unfortunately while this is true, it is also true that people just aren't upgrading their computers and graphics cards either. Because, for most people, computers are now "fast enough".

 

That's why I also provide the high poly one
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/14659

This is mostly recommended for closes and character customization area.

 

There isn't a very good workflow for that yet. What I did for the ones in the Recipe Crowd demo was start with a few characters and add or delete stuff from them manually. You could do the same thing for DNA, but normally all the DNA would be in one recipe, unless it was something specific to a certain slot. If you want to add new DNA from code you can use GetOrCreateDNA on the UMARecipe.

 

HELP!!!
im getting this error in the first scene...

MissingMethodException: Method not found: 'UnityEngine.Component.set_active'.
UMA.WorkerCoroutine.Work ()
Rethrow as Exception: Exception in WorkerCoroutine: UMA.TextureProcessPROCoroutine
UMA.WorkerCoroutine.Work ()
UMA.WorkerCoroutine.Work ()
UMA.UMAGeneratorBuiltin.HandleDirtyUpdate (UMA.UMAData data)
UMA.UMAGeneratorBuiltin.OnDirtyUpdate ()
UMA.UMAGeneratorBuiltin.Update ()


and this in the second scene....

JsonException: Invalid character 'b' in input string
LitJson.Lexer.NextToken ()
LitJson.JsonReader.ReadToken ()
LitJson.JsonReader.Read ()
LitJson.JsonMapper.ReadValue (System.Type inst_type, LitJson.JsonReader reader)
LitJson.JsonMapper.ToObject[UMAPackRecipe] (System.String json)
UMATextRecipe.PackedLoad (.UMAContext context) (at Assets/UMA/UMA_Project/Scripts/UMATextRecipe.cs:11)
UMAPackedRecipeBase.Load (UMA.UMARecipe umaRecipe, .UMAContext context) (at Assets/UMA/UMA_Project/Scripts/UMAPackedRecipeBase.cs:11)
UMAAvatarBase.Load (.UMARecipeBase umaRecipe) (at Assets/UMA/Example/Scripts/UMAAvatarBase.cs:48)
UMADynamicAvatar.Start () (at Assets/UMA/Example/Scripts/UMADynamicAvatar.cs:18)

 

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/um...n-the-asset-store.219175/page-45#post-2040434

 

On the first scene i unseleted "use pro" and i don't get errors but the women avatars dont have legs. Everyone is white and i can't customize them with the editer on the left hand side.

The second scene still giving me errors.

Im using unity 5

 

Unity 5 doesn't work with the asset store version of uma. Someone created an alternate uma.dll for Unity 5. We'll be releasing a new version of uma with all the latest improvements in a matter of weeks.

 

Are there somewhere tips on how to use UMA in a multiplayer game?
Also on how an an UMA Character can ride a horse as an example (in a multiplayer game)?
Normaly i would animate a horse with a character together for that and change them if the player character start to climp onto the horse but with a customizeable character i do not know how to do that?

 

It's the same regardless of whether the model is customizable or not:
You would create a "mount point" on the horse model in your modeler. Then, you would make the rider a child of the mount point, and play his "mounted" animation.

 

I use UMA with the multiplayer library Bolt. I wrote a quick guide how to implement it: http://forum.boltengine.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1907

UMA and mounts work very good. @Jaimi mentioned how to do it, you place the UMA character at a "mount point" of the mount. Even combat works on a mount in a multiplayer game with UMA. See from second 20:

 

I am using the custom uma.dll that @Jaimi posted and i get no errors (in the first scene) but the women have no legs and no one is customizable.

 

You are not right. Ammount of people who upgrade and who do not is still the same. If you were right, every new game would be commercial failure. But games are more and more hungry. What does it mean is obvious.

 

Sorry, not true. People are moving away from desktops, to notebooks and tablets and other nonupgradeable devices. Sales have been flat and falling for years, because people just dont care. Of course there are always enthusiasts, but even the market for discrete graphics cards is shrinking. Dropped 20% in 2014 alone. But this is a thread for UMA, not about gfx market share, and fernando has you covered for high poly anyway.

 

Check to make sure the overlay and slot assets didnt get fubarred.

 

Thank you cyby89 and Jaimi.
I do use another method for mounting that only worked for fixed characters but the mount point way is by far better.
I only think that the animations can be looking ugly if the player choose the character to short or to big and maybe insect with the horse but i have to test it.

@cyby89
your game look realy nice and i played with your character customization wich was fun to.
How do you made the race choosing thing?
What do you use for the multiplayer part, Unity´s own rakenet or photon or ?

Back to UMA, is the one version i can download on git the latest version that i can use for Unity 5?
Do someone know if this asset is still working with the latest UMA so i can use it in Unity 5 with pbr?
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/14833

 

Eli and me is working in a new release right now...

 

@RandAIThor
I actually put the transform of the characters ass to the mount point. Therefore it doesn't matter how big your character is.
The race choosing is just a random of predefined stuff. Let's say the Orc: The skin color is random between 2 greenish colors. He has always Orc-Teeth and he can have every available hair combination. The base for all races is just the UMA base mesh.
The multiplayer is done with boltengine.com

 

Ah sorry, you told that you use bolt.
I just read true the code abd try to understand on how you use it.

Good to know that a new version will come out, thank you too UnLogick.

 

If the horse was UMA-ed, you could theoretically change the size of the horse in conjunction with the size of the rider ...?

 

Yes, though you would have to write your own dna converters.

 

I'm a little confused about PBR still. With the newer version of UMA I see the UMABaseShaderSample now has Gloss and Specular sliders, but I don't see a way to provide gloss/specular combined texture... Also is the material updater completely updated to match this as well? Or is there some code updates that aren't quite on the repository yet that will come with the new updated texture sets?

 

The textures and overlays for the PBR versions of the base content aren't on github yet.

 

Hi, does anyone know if it's possible to create overlay data that only uses diffuse? Every time I create a new overlay it creates a normal map to go with it, even though the shader I'm using only requires a diffuse texture - and I get an error at runtime if I try using an overlay that does not have at least 2 textures.

By the way, many thanks to the creators of UMA! I too feel that more documentation would be helpful. I would gladly contribute to this but I barely know how the thing works myself...

If there was a kickstarter you would have my cash very quickly

 

The normal map created shouldn't be causing an influence, so long as your original material file you used in creating the overlay doesn't have one. Normal maps for me don't show, if I haven't added one to my reference material.

Also, Arteria are releasing a Medieval Modular Costume Kit containing over 20 medieval costumes and armour that can be interchanged on UMA. This will be released next week for UMA 1 and also for UMA2 shortly too

The original Medieval Modular Kit is here if anyone would like to look - this with many mesh and texture improovements is what we are almost ready to release:
http://arteria3d.myshopify.com/products/obm

 

Cool news, Steve!

 

If i use facegen to creat a head,it can change the head of UMA models?
if UMA can,how do that?thank you!

 

Hi,

I'm still working on UMA to try and create characters for a character generator later also hopefully to be used in a game or so. I want to have different combinations of outfits for the characters and so after having made a pants overlay I created a chest using Blender and the tutorials.

Then for future reference I wanted to be able to use new slots over the chest as well as just overlays for the chest like the two shirts that are standard in UMA. I know that since most of the chest pieces will not replace the torso entirely I needed to make a new module over the torso in the Randomsets.

First I changed the female randomset to display only a bikini on the chest (Well actually not really, but for this topic I added the bikini layer again)

This is the result:

All the models are wearing a bikini.

Then I added a new module at the bottom of the random sets with the slot for my tunic and the Tshirt from the UMA pack.

This was the result

All the models are wearing the tunic or the Tshirt. So the new module is shown on all the models.

When I just tried to add these two slots too the Torso it would replace the torso with these meshes, thus not showing the torso at all. Or half of the models wouldn't be wearing a Tshirt or Tunic.
So I figured, if I want to add Torso overlays I would first have to add another Torso that would overwrite the 'standard' Torso with the bikini so to speak and I could add overlays on top of that one.
I added the Torso to the new module I made like so:

First the Female body overlays, then the two shirt overlays since with the other torso slot the second overlay data (here the femaleshirt01 and 02, there the femaleunderwearbra01) added these overlays on top of the Torso.

This is the result:

I get models wearing the bikini here too, while I haven't added the bikini to the chestpiece module at all.

I don't really understand why I can't get it to work right.

- If I make the one module all kinds of wierd things happen with either the meshes or the overlays.
- If I seperate them thinking that the lower module will overwrite the first Torso somehow it seems that when it comes to rendering the Torso it seems to randomize to show either the one with the Bra, or the one with T-shirt. While I thought the second module would overwrite the first Torso Module.

Can Someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong?

 

If you're using the regular version of FaceGen the head won't have the right geometry to connect to the UMA neck, so it would only work if that area was covered. They have a version which will use custom mesh and UV maps which should work with the UMA heads - http://www.facegen.com/customizer.htm

 

The default bra and panties are a single overlay, so it's probably included as an option for the legs which would make it show up on both. It's going to choose one slot from each "section" rather than overwrite, so if you have another slot that just has the plain torso before the slot with the mesh shirts and the slot with the overlay shirts it will choose one of the 3 possible. That's the most likely cause although it can't be seen in your screenshot. The random set is unfortunately confusing enough that we're trying to move away from it for UMA 2 (featuring a whole new confusing way to build crowds!)

 

I've deleted the default bra and panties and separated them into panties or a pants overlay on the legs and the bra part on the Torso.

If I understand you correctly you are saying that you cannot have a nude chest with another slot for a chest piece over that one or a chest with a top overlay because the top overlays will always be generated under the chest pieces you'd create?

And if you add the Torso another time it will start randomizing the two torso's like it were two options in one module?