Fuse/Mixamo or UMA/Mecanim for Creating Animated 3D Characters?

Unity Engine
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So I am working on a 3D game in Unity and I am currently looking for a way to create animated characters for it. I am not an artist and I
cannot afford to pay one to create the characters for me (yet) and as a result I’ve started searching for an application that would allow me to create a 3D character without the need for modeling. So basically something where I can pick between a set of given body types, hair types, hair colors, face shapes, etc., and by combining those I would create my own 3D character. After the character is created I’d like to animate it by assigning certain animations to it from a set of pre-existing ones (I am not an animator so I need plug and play functionality). And finally I’d like to be able to export it in FBX format for use in Unity.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out there are quite a few such applications, i.e. Mixamo Fuse, Daz Studio, MakeHuman, Poser, Quidam Studios, Autodesk’s Character Creator, and last but not least, the Unity Multipurpose Avatar (UMA).

After doing research on all of the above based on several criteria, such as cost, availability of game developer license, compatibility with Unity, etc., I’ve narrowed the list down to two contenders, namely Mixamo Fuse and UMA/Mecanim.

So here is where my dilemma lies, which one of those two to go with? Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Here is a quick summary:

Mixamo Fuse:

Pluses:

  • Reasonably priced, i.e. Fuse is free and it comes with some free characters and animations and you get one free rig per week. Other than that the cost of models and animations is not too bad.
  • Free and royalty-free game developer license for commercial games.
  • Models created in it can be easily imported into Unity.
  • Large user base and lots of tutorials on how to do pretty much everything.
  • Models can be animated on the Mixamo Website without too much of a problem.

Minuses:

  • Even though the game developer license is royalty free, it doesn’t look like you actualy own the copyright to a character you create in it. In other words, you can create a character and you can use it in your game for free, but the character doesn’t belong to you. Am I understanding this correctly? Please correct if I am wrong. If I am not wrong though, this could be a problem.

UMA and Mecanim:

Pluses:

  • It’s integrated in Unity.
  • Free game developer license. I am guessing royalty free also?
  • Large user base and lots of tutorials (same as Mixamo Fuse).
  • Models can be animated with Mecanim, which is also integrated in Unity.

Minuses:

  • It’s still very new, hence it’ll probably have less assets (body types, hair types, clothes, etc.) to choose from when creating characters.
  • It lacks (as of yet) a good WYSIWYG (what yousee is what you get) interface.
  • You are tied to Unity. I mean, I like Unity a lot and I don’t plan on switching game engines, but what if I do one day? Can I export a model created in UMA and use it in another engine? I kind of doubt that.

So please help me make a decision. I don’t mind spending a reasonable amount of money for good quality products, so the cost of models and animations for Mixamo Fuse is not really an issue. My main considerations are:

  • Which one of those two would allow me to create the best 3D models (as in, ease of use, availability of assets for customizing my characters, availability of animations to chose from, ease of animating the models).
  • The game I am working on involves fighting game mechanics, meaning it’ll require a great number of complex animations, so another consideration is, if the given set of animations is missing something I need, how easy would it be to import the model in some other animation software, such as iClone for example, and add some custom animations there?
  • If I decide to use motion capture for my animations (with Kinect, for example), which one of those two applications would produce models that would be more compatible with motion capture?
  • And finally, I’d like to own the copyrights to my models. Which one of the applications above is more suitable for that?

Thanks in advance.

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If you can afford the subscription for Mixamo All Access and would use all of its features, it’s a fantastic deal. Don’t pay retail, though. Sign up for a Mixamo webinar. They usually give out 25% discounts at the end. This gives you access to their full motion library, FacePlus, all Fuse features, and models and animation in FBX format so you’re not tied to Unity. You can also get them in .anim format with their in-Unity app. Working with cleaned-up mocap (versus raw data) will save you weeks of time and give you a better end product unless you’re a really good animator already.

According to Mixamo’s legal pages, you can use all content royalty free in end-user products (e.g., games), but you can’t resell the raw content (characters and animations) as your own – for example, in an Asset Store product that others would use to make their own games. If you don’t go All Access, one free rig per week isn’t too bad. Mixamo also has great support. There’s something to say for a professional company behind a product. They also take requests for new motions, so you could get a pro to record a fight move rather than capturing it yourself.

That said, UMA has a lot of momentum behind it, not least of which the Unity folks themselves have been promoting it. I think it has a good future, and I think the copyright issues are easier. Do you really need copyright ownership, though? The only reason I see for this is if you want to resell the models.

Also, a lot of third parties are scrambling to make their assets UMA-compatible. And personally I don’t see any problem with it being tied to Unity. You’re not going to switch platforms mid-project. And by the time you work on your next project, your needs will probably be different anyways.

Since you can retarget Mecanim, either way should be fine if you do your own mocap. Just record it on whatever rig is convenient in your mocap software and retarget it in Unity. I’m looking forward to dual-Kinect support in Cinema Mo Cap. At the moment, you can’t really use it for fight moves because it can’t capture turning or hands crossing in front of your body. But you could set up an inexpensive dual-Kinect mocap studio using iPi or use iClone.

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Hi TonyLi,

Thank you for your answer. Darn, you are making really good cases for both applications :slight_smile: As per Mixamo, I can’t really afford the full access pass yet, but I don’t think I really need it at this point. I’ve tried to keep my project quite simple and small scale so my needs for 3D models would probably be sufficiently well met with the one free rig per week feature, and if not, additional rigs are reasonably priced. And I am not an animator so mocap or new motion requests is definitely the way to go for me. One more reason in favor of mocap is that I would like to have authentic looking martial arts techniques in the game and capturing a real-life martial artist is the best way to do that.

You brought up an interesting point though, namely that Mixamo takes requests for new motion captured by pros. I don’t think UMA does that currently and who knows when, if ever, the people behind it would provide such a service. So on that point, Mixamo has a bit of an advantage for me.

You are also right about the professional company behind a product thing. I find that people are more motivated and more likely to provide good service and create high quality products, in a timely manner, if they get paid for it. And the good customer support makes a big difference. Unity had great customer support too though. I’ve never had any problems finding info about solving problems in Unity. So that’s a toss up for me.

As for the copyright question, I have no desire to resell any assets I create in Fuse or any other Mixamo products. I only want to sell the game (if people want to buy it, that is lol). So from the point of view of using the content in a game royalty-free, their license is fine. What I would like to own though, is the character I create in Mixamo. Not the actual 3D models and animations, but the character’s name, likeness, personality, history, etc. What I mean is, suppose I create a game called GameX and my main character is HeroX, he has bright blue hair, wears a metallic armor, fights with a huge gun-sword, and he is from a world called WorldX where all people live under water and have, therefore, extremely well developed lungs (or whatever; this is all random stuff to make my point).

So let’s say I came up with all these attributes for my character and his background and then I created an animated 3D model to represent him using Mixamo products, and then I put him in my game. So, I know I own the game now and I can sell it royalty-free and I can’t resell the 3D model for HeroX. That’s fine. However, who owns HeroX now? If Mixamo owns him, and let’s just assume the game was popular (I hope lol), can they now say to me, “…Sorry, HeroX is popular and we’ll now take him and use him in a game of our own. You can’t use him in your games anymore cause we own him”? Or do they only own the 3D model and not HeroX, his likeness and background, etc? Confusing, I know. I think I’ll just email Mixamo and ask them.

You also make a good point about being tied, or not tied, to Unity. I agree that’s not really an issue for me.

The one thing that bothers me about UMA is that it’s still so new, while Mixamo has been doing this for years. It’ll probably be at least a good couple of years before they catch up to the breadth and quality of service and products Mixamo provides.

I am still not decided. Any other opinions?

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If your character really takes off, you’ll trademark the character design, not its implementation in a specific medium (such as Fuse 3D). For example, Sonic the Hedgehog is protected regardless of whether he’s in a 3D game, 2D game, or hand-drawn comic book. The way I read Mixamo’s terms, they have rights to the model data, but you have rights to the design, name, background, etc. If you have any concerns about rights that Mixamo might retain, just email their support folks like you said. They seem pretty cool about these things; they host Valve Team Fortress 2 characters for noncommercial purposes. And there’s really nothing you can do about pirates who would infringe on your character’s likeness except send lawyers after them. They’ll try to steal regardless of legal right and wrong. As for the 3D model, if the game takes off you could always hire a modeler to make another 3D model if you really wanted to redistribute it.

I like Mixamo’s mocap because it’s cleaned up. I don’t have the patience or artistic skill to clean up raw mocap. I’m having to do this to prepare an example for an upcoming Asset Store product, and it’s a real pain (for me at least).

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UMA is more than a character generator. The strength of UMA is that characters can be rebuilt at run-time, so you can make for example, a character customizer like in an RPG game. I could be wrong, but those other programs do not have this kind of functionality.

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You’re correct. Mixamo doesn’t do that. I’m not knocking UMA. In fact, using both might be ideal – Mixamo’s cleaned-up mocaps, and UMA’s runtime-dynamic models.

1 Like
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@TonyLi,

Very good points about the copyright issue. That puts my concerns to rest. I did email them but their answer was not descriptive enough. They just said, “All of Mixamo’s assets are royalty free provided that you embed them in a project (video game, film, simulation, print material, toy). If you were to attempt to sell HeroX as a standalone 3D image, then we would object.” So basically, they told me what I already knew. I’ll have to further elaborate on my question.

Your other point about the cleaned-up mocap with Mixamo pretty much convinced me to go with them though. As I explained above, mocap will most likely be crucial to capturing the authentic martial art moves my game requires. And as you also said, there is nothing wrong with using both, per their respective strengths. At this time though, I won’t be needing the capability to customize a character in-game, hence Fuse, and the rest of Mixamo’s pipeline, should be sufficient for the features I’ll need in the game.

Thanks!

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Correct me if I am wrong, but won’t Mixamo animations work fine with UMA characters? As long as they are Mecanim ready, they should work with either Mixamo characters or UMA.

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Yes, that’s correct. I think the earlier comment about Mixamo was that there’s no runtime character generation/customization tool. But Mixamo animations work great with UMA characters.

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Epic thread zombie

Fuse is now available in the UAS, and it’s on sale through all of June. The new version includes 280+ adjustable shapes for each character.

Video showing off the new stuff:

Fuse in UAS: Unity Asset Store - The Best Assets for Game Making

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You left out the biggest difference. Mixamo Fuse, from everything I see, is a Build-time system. UMA is a run-time system.

Mixamo is simpler to use but if you want player customization of avatars its not an option.